Less Than Preferable
by Killer Zebra
Summary: Girl wakes from 5-year coma, gets mysterious ring, dies -again-, wakes up in a place that doesn't exist . . . All part of the beautiful cliché-ness of this tale. Sequel to Not What I Had Planned.
1. Prologue

**Full Title: In Which I Rediscover That Being Dead is Less Than Preferable  
Summary: Girl wakes from 5-year coma, gets mysterious ring, dies (again), wakes up in a place that doesn't exist . . . All part of the beautiful cliché-ness of this tale. Sequel to **_**Not What I Had Planned.  
**_**Category: Adventure/Friendship  
Rating: T**

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**Prologue**

_She's standing there, covered in mud, staring at an equally muddy something on the ground in front of her. Dark eyebrows are drawn together slightly in confusion, and her stance is almost . . . surprised. Cold dawn light filters through the forest of pines around her, vaguely illuminating her pale skin and glinting through loosely hanging strands of mud-caked brunette hair. She's wearing a black tank-top and a pair of knee-length jean cutoffs, and as she stares, her hands clasp and unclasp nervously in front of her, the only part of her that's moving. After a time she blinks rapidly, her gaze darting away from the object on the ground and moving slowly over her surroundings, taking in each and every dewdrop and long shadow with incredible appreciation, as though she's never seen anything like them before. It's with something like reluctance that her attention shifts back to the object again. She breathes a sigh, coloring the chilled air in front of her with the mist of her breath; a small, sad smile touches her lips. _

_She has a decision to make. _

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	2. Oak Trees Must Really Hate Me

**AN: I'm **_**baaack!**_** :D Happy to see me? Um, some things to be noted: this picks up after the **_**alternate **_**ending of **_**Not What I Had Planned, **_**but you don't actually have to read that (the alternate ending, I mean. You do need to read the story). If you haven't played **_**Warrior Within,**_** though, stop reading this now. It won't make even the most infinitesimal iota of sense.  
Omniscient Plecostamus of Doom (OPOD): "Burble?"  
. . . It won't make even a little bit of sense. Also, there will be major spoilers. Uh . . . I've shortened the time between SoT and WW a little bit, from seven years to five, just because seven seemed too long for some reason. And slightly cruel. But I'm chattering too much: get on to the story! **

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Jenny (narrating): _I fiddled with the radio, frowning when I only got static. I didn't notice that the spaces between my fingers on the hand that was gripping the ring started glowing blue; I didn't notice a doe stepping out into the road, then freezing as my headlights hit her; I didn't notice until it was too late. I glanced up casually; my eyes widened in horror, and I frantically spun the wheel to the left. The last thing I noticed was pain, and then there was nothing but darkness.  
_**(Excerpt from Chapter 1 of **_**Not What I Had Planned)**_

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**Chapter 1: Oak Trees Must Really Hate Me**

My whole body was limp and rubbery, like I was a noodle that someone had cooked for too long. There was a beeping sound coming from my left, like a heart monitor, and that, combined with the sterile, cool scent of the air, confirmed my half formed impression that I was in a hospital. This though, didn't eclipse the strange feeling in my chest, so palpable that it almost felt physical. I felt . . . hollow, empty; like I'd lost something important.

I opened my eyes, squinting as they adjusted to the seemingly harsh glare of the light coming in from the window. A diminutive figure, slumped dejectedly in the recliner beside the bed, straightened in shock, staring at me with wide blue eyes.

"_You're awake!"_ Kimberly shrieked. I flinched at the volume, but she didn't seem to notice, throwing herself at me and giving a strangely careful hug, considering her enthusiasm. I realized why when even the gentle touch of her hands on my shoulders sent dull waves of pain through my back. I stiffened slightly, and Kim pulled away, grinning and sobbing at the same time.

"I can't believe—" She released a shuddering sigh. "We'd almost given up hope, Jenny," she whispered, looking at me like I was a waking miracle. Maybe I was. She leaned over and pressed the red button on the wall above the bed, to summon a nurse.

I found my voice. "What happened?" The words were quiet and hoarse, but clear enough. Kim looked like she wanted to hug me again, but restrained herself at my admittedly queasy expression: I'd just discovered the tubes coming out of my nostrils.

"You crashed your car into an oak tree the size of the Empire State Building," my best friend responded. "Don't you remember?"

_Mud on my Rocket Dogs . . . a deer in the road . . . darkness . . . _

_The ring._

"Oh," I muttered after attempting to swallow. "You know I paid fifty bucks for that car crash?"

At Kim's baffled expression I tried to laugh, but just ended up coughing, the motion wracking my body and setting my throat and lungs on fire. Despite my best efforts, tears were leaking from the corners of my eyes by the time I was able to stop, and Kim hovered nervously, wanting to help, but afraid anything she did would make things worse. I gave a weak smile to reassure her.

"I'm fine," I managed, my voice raspier than it had been. Kim's gaze focused on something behind me, her features brightening, and when I turned to look there was a paper-white nurse standing in the doorway, her expression almost as shocked as Kim's had been to discover me conscious. She wore a set of purple scrubs with a small blue lizard embroidered on the breast pocket. The semi-professional look was completely thrown off, though, by short, spiked hair in variations of these same colors, and eyes of a matching electric blue that had to have been achieved by contacts.

"She's awake, Tessa!" cried Kim happily, as though that simple fact made all of the world's problems better.

The bizarrely colored woman—Tessa—tore her eyes from me to look at her. "I . . . I see that—But _how?_ Everyone said it was impossible—it _should've _been impossible! But here she is, awake and—"

"Excuse me, but the 'impossible' girl happens to be in the room, and she would appreciate it if you would stop talking about her as if she wasn't there," I said dryly.

Tessa's eyes flashed to me guiltily, and a hint of a blush rose in her porcelain-pale cheeks. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just . . . I'm not used to you being able to hear me."

I'd been ignoring the signs: Kim's shock at my waking, the familiar way she addressed Tessa, the barely noticeable crow's feet at the corners of her eyes; the fact that none of my family was there. Everything pointed to the fact that I'd been in the hospital for a while.

"Kim, how long was I unconscious?" I asked suddenly. My best friend, suddenly appearing nervous, avoided my eyes. I turned to the nurse; her gaze was sympathetic.

"I'm sorry, Jenny," she said gently, her comfortable use of my name another suggestion that she'd had the time to hear a lot about me. "I think you've probably guessed somewhat, but just . . . try to stay calm. Too much stress probably isn't good for you right now, but you deserve to know the truth, and from what I know of you, you should be able to handle it." She glanced to Kim as though for approval, and when the blonde didn't protest, continued: "You've been in a coma for almost five years. And that's not all: your spine was damaged in the crash; you won't be able to walk again."

* * *

Five years. A lot had happened in five years. Kim was engaged to her (last time I knew) crush, Drew, and she'd moved on in her life, but she'd never given up on me, not completely. Tessa told me that she'd still visited every week, with very few skippages, even when my family's visits became few and far between. I couldn't blame them, really. It wasn't that they hadn't cared: quite the opposite, in fact. Seeing me in that condition had hurt them, and when the time came that the doctors assured them with sympathies that the chances of my ever waking up were slim to none, they had, intentionally or not, avoided that pain as much as possible. My brother had cried when he saw me awake again, and he _never _cried. He prided himself on his self-control. Or . . . he used to, anyway; I didn't know anymore. It was all rather depressing, I thought, staring out the window at the countless identical windows in the building opposite. I'd missed out on five years of my life, sure, but for some reason it seemed far more devastating that I'd missed out on five years of _their _lives. My family. My friends. I had nieces: four of them. They'd been happy to see me, but only in the way that children are when they meet a new, interesting (_I hope_) person that their parents have informed them is a friend. They didn't care about _me: _I was a stranger to them. They were strangers to me. And it hurt like hell.

My legs were gone. Not literally, but they might as well have been. They were pale, bone-thin things; I couldn't even feel them. They were just an extra weight to drag around whenever I tried to work my atrophied muscles. I hated feeling so helpless, knowing that I was completely at the mercy of whoever my current caretaker was, and my usual technique for getting past the 'bad stuff' (_Just hold out; just be strong: it'll be over eventually. All you have to do is live through it_) wasn't applicable: this would never be over; this would be with me for the rest of my life.

Eventually I recovered enough to wheel myself through the hospital halls in my wheelchair, although I tired quickly and there was always a nurse within earshot. When I could do two rounds of the floor I was on without needing to call for help, Dr. Vasen informed me that I was allowed to go home, just as soon as my 'caretakers' (my parents, in this case) had been properly instructed and otherwise equipped to care for me. I had mixed feelings on the matter. I was, understandably, relieved at the prospect of being out of the clinical, sterile atmosphere of the hospital, but at the same time I feared what surely waited for me when I returned to the 'real world': more change; more realizing that the world wasn't the same place I remembered it being. Sometimes it felt like my life would never attain some semblance of normalcy.

But it did. I discovered that I still had a sense of humor, although it was, perhaps, a tad darker than it had been. I was slowly weaned off of my pain meds (I never realized how much they messed with my head until they weren't anymore), I started taking online classes to gain my belated high school diploma, and my relationship with Kim, although obviously pretty awkward at first, was somehow as strong as it had been before the accident; maybe even more so. She even played the same sort of role: drawing me out of my shell of isolation and teaching me that it was okay to live life again. Her fiancé, Drew, was a sweet goofball, but sensible enough to balance Kim's occasional 'blonde' moments: they complemented each other perfectly, and though I hadn't expected to, I thoroughly approved.

Everyday life crept in over the next several months, slowly banishing my disorientation, and eventually I forgot that the hollow place in my chest had ever been anything other than empty.

* * *

"Jenny-love, do you know where the phone is?"

I glanced up from the book I was reading, _The Paradise War, _to look at the phone base, and sighed at my Dad's absentmindedness. "In its hanger, Dad: exactly where it's supposed to be."

There was a silence as he moseyed his way into the room to look. "Ah."

I stifled a chuckle.

He snatched up the 'elusive' piece of technology and strode off into the kitchen purposefully . . . then returned a few minutes later to hang up the phone, admitting sheepishly that he couldn't remember who he had been calling. I didn't bother to hide my laughter, this time: I think sometimes my dad was absentminded on purpose, just so he could make me laugh. Still chuckling, I turned my eyes back to the black-on-white print of _The Paradise War._

There was a long moment of silence, and I assumed that my dad had left the room until, with a '_thunk',_ something dropped onto the pages of my book. I looked, and stiffened:

It was the ring.

"They found it clenched in your hand," Dad said quietly, all traces of vagueness vanished. "You wouldn't let go of it, not even when they used the defibrillators on you, not even when they did surgery on your spine. You held on for almost a week, and then one day you just relaxed and dropped it, while your mother was there. You'd been holding so tightly that it cut into your skin. Your mom wanted me to have it destroyed . . . she thinks I did, actually. But I couldn't. I thought, anything you held onto so tightly for so long had to be important, and to destroy it would just be—disrespectful, of that tenacity." I didn't look at him, my eyes still on the blue, rounded stone, and he continued hesitantly: "If I was wrong, I'll destroy it now, right this instant. But if you want it, it's yours."

I found my voice, but the words that came out of it somewhat surprised me: "I want it." My hand closed possessively around the ring. "Paid fifty bucks for this thing, you know." _I paid a lot more than that. _My eyes rose to meet his and we both smiled, relieved that the tense moment was over.

* * *

It couldn't have been more than two hours later. A storm front had moved in, which, considering the location and that it was spring, involved a thorough soaking, a lot of blustering wind, and not much else. My father had decided to run into the store and get some supplies, just in case the power went out. The meteorologist (before the power failed, that is) on the news exclaimed a lot about how unpredictable and unexpected the storm had been, with no sign of its existence until only a couple hours beforehand.

The wind came first, haphazardly knocking down trees and power lines and howling through narrow places with malicious glee, and the rain followed shortly after, soaking everything with the driving force of the wind behind it. It was nice, actually, to sit safe and warm in the house while the storm raged outside, I thought. I was quite content, cozy in my sheltered cocoon, with a book and a mug of hot coffee on hand. Then, as though the storm was annoyed at my contented musings and lack of reaction to its mighty wrath, the power went out. It wasn't quite nighttime yet, but the heavy cloud cover had lent a premature darkness to the world below, and so when the lights went out, I was cast into complete blackness. I scowled out the window, finally disturbed from my sleepy calm. _Stupid storm._ And here I was almost done with _The Paradise War, _too! Reading by candlelight was a lot more difficult than one would think, although I resolved to try anyway, if only in defiance of the spiteful elements. I went about gathering and lighting our emergency candles (and one antique oil lamp that my mother insisted on keeping around), and soon was settled back into my former position. The ring, now securely positioned on the index finger of my left hand, gleamed softly in the flickering candlelight.

Precisely two seconds later, the enormous old oak tree that had been outside for as long as anybody remembered fell onto the house and smooshed me. I thought, _Oak trees must really hate me. _Then I thought, _Or maybe I just have the worst karma in the __**world**__, and it has an evil sense of humor._

Right about then was the time I died.

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**AN: And so the plot is introduced . . . What do you guys think? Lame? Intriguing? A necessary evil so that we can get to the good stuff? Do I still have some faithful followers left? Review please!**

**~Killer Zebra**

**P.S. I've never been in a situation like I'm having Jenny go through, nor has anyone I'm close to. I'm going in completely blind: all I have to base things on is my imagination. The one thing I didn't have to improvise on was the hospital: my dad had some heart problems a while back, so I know the general structure pretty well . . . but that's beside the point (yes, there actually **_**is **_**a point). If I'm completely off base, or if I've offended anyone (or if you have any tips to help add to the authenticity—I really am going in blind here), **_**please **_**tell me. I want to improve my writing as much as possible, and I can only do that with your help!**


	3. The Trees Finally Fulfill Their Vendetta

**AN: *hums the tune of **_**Secret Agent Man**_*** . . . What? My IPod was on shuffle. Hmm . . . I got a mixed response on the last chapter. I hope I can win over those of you who are still a bit put out about the alternate ending. But I'm going to make a confession: I don't think that this story is nearly as good as **_**NWIHP.**_** I'm going to post it, but I'm afraid that I'll disappoint you guys. So I apologize in advance for the lower quality, and if you automatically added this to your favorites when I posted Chapter 1, don't be afraid to remove it when you realize that it **_**sucks.**_** Okay, now that that's off my chest, thanks to those of you who reviewed, and enjoy Chapter 2! C: **

**Disclaimer: Read carefully, because from this point on my disclaimers will be a generic something or other: I do not own Prince of Persia. This is very obvious, but I have to tell you anyway. If you had any weird inklings that any of this belonged to me, then perhaps you should check out the name of the website you're on again****. **

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Jenny (narrating): _Would I wake up in the Maharajah's palace, my last memory of pain and darkness, to try and cut out a place for myself in this world as best I could? Or would Prince find me somehow, tell me what had happened, and "make sure I had a place," as Farah had said? There was no way I could know.  
_**(Excerpt from Chapter 19 of **_**Not What I Had Planned)**_

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_Last Chapter: Right about then was the time I died._

**Chapter 2: The Oak Trees Finally Fulfilled Their Vendetta**

They say that your life flashes before your eyes right before you die. Well, I never _had_ been very traditional: my life didn't flash before my eyes until _afterward_. Before I was too busy thinking about evil karma and oak trees. I felt vaguely regretful, looking back over my time on earth: I'd never really _accomplished _anything. It was somewhat comforting to know that I would be missed, at least, but even that caused a pang of guilt: it wasn't my fault, sure, but I was putting the people I cared for most through this whole situation _again, _and this time, I somehow knew, I wouldn't be coming back.

It occurred to me suddenly that dead people didn't generally do this much thinking. Not that there was any way to know . . . Maybe people just became disembodied thinking machines after they died, and—

I shook myself mentally, halting the inner speculative monologue. What was going on? Had the whole ring/oak tree incident been some sort of wacko dream? _No._ If I was sure of anything, it was that.

I opened my eyes, realizing with mild surprise that I _could_. I was lying prone on my back on a flat, slightly rough surface that felt like worn stone. The ceiling above me was light grey stone with obscure, darker patterns etched over it. Cautiously (and only partially to see if I could), I swiveled my stiff neck to survey the remainder of the room.

I was sprawled near the foot of an imposing griffin statue, identical to the one across the room; they guarded a firmly shut, solid wooden gate. Farther into the room were two wide, opulent staircases, lit by braziers on railings, and curved around and framing—

I stared; I blinked; the vision didn't change. Framed by the staircases was a looming, darkly sinuous, _empty _hourglass. _I know this place._ I told myself that that was the only reason I was getting an odd sense of déjà vu.

Resting my head back against the floor, I sighed and closed my eyes, waiting for—something. I wasn't sure what, but I knew that this (whatever it was: hallucination, waiting room for dead-people-in-training . . . something) couldn't last long. Of course, there was one other possibility . . . _Right, _I scoffed to myself, _I've __**actually **__been deposited into a video game that I (technically) haven't played for five years. _No . . . I was pretty sure that this was just the environment that my mind had chosen for some obscure reason. Strangely enough, I felt rather composed. I should've been pretty freaked out (having died and all), but instead it felt . . . well, almost like I'd been through this before.

_Come to think of it, _I mused, _it does feel rather like when I woke up from the coma . . . nothing seems quite real, everything's disorienting, and the one thing I can be certain of is that my life— __**death,**_ I corrected myself, _—will never be the same._

Something finally happened, but it wasn't quite what I'd been expecting (not that I'd had a lot of idea what to expect): there was the ominous sound of heels clicking down the stairway, then approaching me. Keeping my eyes closed in hopes that the mysterious person would think that I was still dead to the world, I breathed evenly, trying to convince my body that it _wasn't_, in fact, in any danger.

A pointed boot toe nudged my side none too gently, and I yelped and rolled away, giving up the pretense of being unconscious. "Hey!" I protested, pulling myself over to brace my back against the gryphon statue and turning to glare at the pointy-shoed woman. Dark, flowing hair spilled down past her shoulders, framing attractive, sharply defined facial features. Deep-set emerald green eyes shone with an age and cunning that belied her youthful appearance, as did the slightly cynical quirk to her lips. She looked to be several inches taller than me, with unreasonably huge boobs that threatened to spill out of the two narrow, bright red strips of cloth running down to slashed skirts that concealed little more than her top did. Black boots with toes of stiffened leather that narrowed to a point came up to her knees, the culprits of the developing bruise on my side.

I narrowed my eyes. Death and such aside, I knew this woman as well as I knew the Hourglass in the center of the room: she was the Ubisoft-trying-to-placate-gamers-with-a-very-very-very-poor-substitute-for-Farah woman! I instantly hated her. Or, well . . . remembered that I'd hated her in the first place. _Man-stealer._

"You," I said, not bothering to hide my disgust. One advantage to being dead was that anything I did or said from this point out was pretty much irrelevant.

One perfectly plucked eyebrow arched. "Me, yes. But _you_ do not belong in this Timeline."

I rolled my eyes heavenward. "_Thank_ you," I said, mock-earnest; still looking at the sky. "That's good to know." The Empress of Time (—_Ha!—_)pursed her lips thoughtfully, tilting her head and tapping one foot against the flagging in a staccato rhythm.

"What is your name, girl?" she suddenly demanded.

I considered refusing to answer, just to be stubborn, but eventually shrugged. "Jennifer." For some reason it didn't feel quite right to give her the shortened version of my name.

To my faint surprise, though, the woman's eyes widened at the name—in recognition, perhaps? This theory was confirmed when she said, sounding astonished, "_You._"

I frowned, annoyed. "What about me? Yes, I am a dead person who for some reason _isn't _dead—sort of—and is," I gestured vaguely, "_here_, you know, place that doesn't exist." I sighed, my words drifting off into thoughts. _Maybe death is like being asleep, and you just stay in a perpetual dream._ It was the most reasonable (the _only_ reasonable, really) explanation I had come up with thus far. If that was the case, I'd rather my dream stayed pleasant, so maybe it mattered what I did after all. This also meant, though, that things didn't actually have to make sense—such as Kaileena's recognition of my name: it was just part of the dreamscape. I relaxed slightly.

". . . Dead." The Empress' tone was faintly skeptical. I shrugged again, my thoughts shying away from contemplating too much on the whole 'dead' thing. Thinking about the mechanics of it was fine, but if I got into the actual never-be-alive-or-see-the-people-I-love-again part . . .

"Yeah," I muttered. "The oak trees finally fulfilled their vendetta."

Kaileena's response to that statement was pretty much what I'd expected: blank incomprehension. I translated to English:

"An oak tree fell on me."

Her expression cleared slightly. "I see." The contemplative look hadn't left her eyes, though, and it was making me a bit nervous. She queried doubtfully, "And when you died you came _here_?"

I shrugged noncommittally. "I guess so." What was I supposed to say? _'No, I didn't come here, not really, because 'here' doesn't actually exist, and neither do you'_? Somehow I didn't think that that would be well-received.

The Empress frowned slightly, her eyes falling to my awkwardly placed, stick-thin, obviously useless legs. "You are damaged," she said unhappily. I gritted my teeth: I _was _damaged, but the way she put it was just—insensitive. How someone treated those weaker than themselves (which, unfortunately, in this case was me) was usually a good indicator of the rest of their personality: if she was trying to get on my good side (I wasn't sure if she really cared either way), she was doing a lousy job so far.

"Yeah, I'm damaged," I agreed, a little snappish. "And?"

Kaileena looked at me, the thoughtfulness in her eyes finally forming into something solid, something that looked like—hope. "You won't survive long like that, not here," she mused. "I could call my creatures off you—but as you do not belong in this Timeline, their very nature will force them to try to dispose of you by any means possible—even against my orders. And if I keep you locked away, safe, you will be unable to accomplish what you must." She smiled suddenly. Most of the smile was slow, dangerous satisfaction, but there was just a trace of sympathy there. I wasn't sure I wanted her sympathy.

"I can help you with that," she said.

"With what?" I questioned, annoyed. "With 'accomplishing what I must'? Whatever _that_ means." The last bit was muttered under my breath.

Kaileena tilted her head. "That too, but I was talking about your legs."

Despite myself, my breath caught in my throat. To have legs again . . . to run, to feel the firm solidity of the ground under the soles of my feet, with my _own legs _propelling me forward, taking me over obstacles with a versatile ease that wheels could never achieve . . . But it was only a dream, and I soon dispelled the notion, scowling at the beautiful Empress. If there was one thing I didn't need, it was to owe a debt to Miss Melon-boobs.

"Thanks, but no thanks," I declined, biting off each word and trying to hide the longing I felt as I said them.

Kaileena shook her head, smiling gently. "It wasn't a choice, Jennifer. You're no good to me dead." She gestured with one hand and, before I could react, something came down forcefully on the back of my head, bringing swift oblivion.

* * *

My first thought was that my legs had fallen asleep, and the tingling sensation was their coming back to life. Then I realized the flaw in that logic: I shouldn't be able to feel my legs at _all._ I stiffened as awareness and memory flowed back to me in increments._ Drat and armadillos. I __**knew **__that she wasn't to be trusted!_ The place I had been struck on the back of my head throbbed painfully, but when I reached up to feel the area it was neatly bandaged, the soft material wrapping around my crown in a sort of odd headband.

Almost of their own volition, my eyes drifted open. The black tank-top I wore was half soaked from the damp grass I was lying on (although, oddly enough, my jean cutoffs seemed to be dry), causing me to shiver a little in the balmy air. I was on a small, square ledge, just large enough that, lying in a slightly curled-up position on my side, none of my limbs was hanging out into open air. A thin layer of soil over the stone provided just enough nutrients for a lush layer of grass to flourish there. To my back there was rough, stone-hard earth, and above me was the underside of some sort of man-made (or, considering the location, perhaps Sand-creature-made) structure; spread out before me was an intimidating amount of wide-open space, and far below there was a rocky beach and a shimmering sea stretching to the horizon. Finally, reluctantly, I moved my gaze to my own body. From the waist up I looked as I always had; below that, however . . .

I froze, my stomach tightening in a combination of wonder, fascination, and horror: I could feel my legs for the first time since I'd woken up in that hospital room, yes, but in an occasion of cruel irony—they weren't actually there. In their place was a shimmering, twisting vortex of Sand. _Dark Jenny, if you're there, now would be a good time to speak up with an evilly humorous, tension-relieving comment. _

I looked away abruptly, slightly angered at myself for also feeling disappointed. Had I _really _expected to get my legs back? Even _literally _in my dreams that was never a possibility. But if I was right and the Empress wanted to help me for some unfathomable purpose of her own . . .

Closing my eyes and pretending that what I felt as my lower body really _was _my legs, instead of some twisted Sand-construction, I made the motions that would, in ordinary circumstances, have pushed me to my feet. Almost immediately I was forced to reopen my eyes; my sense of balance was skewed when all that my vision recorded was darkness, making me wobble dangerously. But . . . I was standing. I was _standing_. I forced down the surge of exhilaration that the thought triggered, reminding myself sternly that, whatever this was, it _wasn't _standing. More like . . . erm, floating? Sand-swirling? _Whatever. _All the same . . . it couldn't hurt to _pretend, _could it? As long as I didn't look down to the area where my legs should've been, it would be all too easy. I took a deep breath and nodded shortly. _There's nothing I can do about it anyway. Except jump off of this cliff, but, uh . . . no._

Now that my decision was reached, I felt slightly calmer; I glanced around again and saw that, in Prince-terms, there were two routes I could follow: run along the wall to my left to reach a similar ledge on the other side, or climb along the narrower ledge above me. Neither option was greatly appealing, obviously, but there was only one of them that was even really _possible_. Unless I wanted to die a quite pointless and unceremonious death (or something . . . I didn't know what would happen if I 'died' here, but I didn't want to find out, either), then I definitely wasn't going to attempt a wall-run. So, that left . . . My gaze drifted dubiously up to the innocuous-looking stone outcropping. _Standing _on it I probably could've dealt with, but it only had just enough space above it for someone to comfortably shift along it by their arms. I shivered at the very _thought_, despite knowing that I probably now possessed the upper body strength to do so, from all of those hours of propelling my wheelchair. As it appeared that I had no other options, though, I squared my shoulders in determination; if I'd had sleeves, I would have rolled them up. Since I didn't, though, I settled for thinking roll-up-the-sleeves thoughts.

Taking a 'step' towards the ledge, I reached up and explored the inside of it with the tips of my fingers, noting with relief that it wasn't slippery at all, and even had a slight indent that I could hold onto. The knowledge helped, a little, as I ignored my suddenly quickened breathing and put all my weight onto my arms, sidling out so that I was hanging in empty air.

_Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't. Look. Down,_ I chanted as I inched along the ledge bit by bit; fighting both the urge to look down, and to shut my eyes tight and never open them again. A cool sea breeze flowed around me, making me all the more conscious of the fact that, if I slipped, there would be nothing to prevent me from being dashed to pieces on the rocks below. It was somewhat of a reassurance, though, to know that, though my arms trembled, it was from tension and fear, not because they were over strained: as I had suspected, my relatively light weight was fairly easy to support with my well-developed arm muscles. As long as I kept my resolve and didn't freeze up in terror, I should reach safety in one piece. _Just don't look down, otherwise you will die. _I paused, adding as an afterthought: _. . . screaming. _It occurred to me that if I was going to die screaming, I at least wanted to be screaming something memorable. _Like . . . "Armadillos!" or "Batman!" or "Chocolate-covered coffee beans!". . . Ooh, yum. _I blinked at the odd path that my thoughts had gone down and shook my head abruptly, noting as I carefully edged around a corner that if I could make it just a few more feet, I would be back on solid ground.

Blood pounded in my ears; my left hand slid another foot along the ledge, and my right soon followed. _Just a bit further . ._ _._ And I was . . . there. Suddenly feeling the urgency that I hadn't allowed myself to before, I mustered up a burst of energy to tug myself up onto solid ground, grunting as the edge struck my stomach with enough force to bruise. I lay there for a moment with my cheek pressed against the spring-green grass, panting, before dragging myself the rest of the way up. Only then, when the danger had passed, did I allow myself to turn and peer back over the edge, perhaps out of morbid curiosity.

The vertigo hit immediately, causing my stomach to churn queasily and sweat to bead on my forehead. I put my hand out to steady myself on the nearest solid object—a vine-covered wall—and sucked in a huge breath, forcing myself not to look away from the long drop below me. I'd never been particularly afraid of heights (no more than was reasonable, anyway), but the knowledge that merely seconds before I had been hanging from my hands with nothing but a _lot _of empty space beneath me did wonders for my appreciation of solid ground. Eventually I looked away, but only after my breathing had calmed and I had reasonably convinced myself that I wasn't going to fall. It may have seemed a bit masochistic to an outsider, but I knew that I couldn't afford for a lifelong fear of heights to be born, not when I was in the official 'Land of Mind-boggling Acrobatics'. I had to conquer this fear (or at least begin to) _now,_ before it got any worse.

When my stomach had finally settled down, I turned, taking in more thoroughly the grassy terrace that I stood on. I'd already made sure it was empty, of course, but now, seeing the turnstile in the center of the grassy area, its brazier dancing with merry flames, I realized that I knew the place: it was part of the Garden Tower.

I began to make for the open gate to my left, but paused, looking at my hand in puzzlement. I was pale, sure, but I hadn't thought that I was _that _sallow . . .

The ground shook, and the world went gray.

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**(Bottom AN) AN: Da-da-da-**_**duuuum!**_** Man, it feels good to be writing again! Uh, anyway, I got the idea for Jenny's new mode of transportation from the Kaileena boss battle (both of them): you know how when she sends those two really tall guys at you (or, in the final battle, those Sand-tornadoes), she floats up on this swirling Sand-vortex-esque thing? That's what gave me the idea. I knew she was capable of that sort of thing (although Jenny is the height that she would normally be, not super tall), and I decided to stick with the known, rather than giving her a bunch of mysterious powers that I'd have to deal with later.  
OPOD: *looms*  
**_**Exactly**_** like that, OPOD. *pats head*  
OPOD: *facefin***

**~Killer Zebra**


	4. Either I'm Really Depressed

**AN: *does happy dance* Yay for reviews! Yay for reviewers! *randomly gathers reviewers into a big group hug*  
OPOD: "Burble, burbleburble? Grrr— burble!"  
I am not suffocating the reviewers! They're perfectly fine! Right, reviewers? . . . Reviewers? . . . Crap.  
Um . . . I apologize in advance for the errors that will doubtless be in this chapter and future ones. I don't know Warrior Within nearly as well as I know Sands of Time, so there's bound to be discrepancies in the terrain.**

**P.S. You can read the Dahaka's speech by reading both the letters and the words (but not the sentence-order) backwards, but if you don't want to bother, there'll be a translation at the end of the paragraph.**

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Jenny (narrating): _How the heck was I going to wake up? I didn't want to be stuck in dream land forever! Wait a sec . . . Maybe I was dead, and this was hell. My lips twitched at the sheer ridiculousness of the thought._ _**Yeah, right.**_**  
(Excerpt from Chapter 2 of **_**Not What I Had Planned.)**_

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_Last Chapter: The ground shook, and the world went sepia._

**Chapter 3: Either I'm **_**Really**_** Depressed . . . (or the Dahaka is stalking me)**

For a moment I was frozen, unable to propel my terror-stricken body into motion. Then a shriek escaped me that would've made a banshee proud, and my lower body, seemingly having forgotten that it wasn't, after all, a pair of legs, launched me towards the open gate, away from the powerful presence behind me. I raced through the gate, around the corner, and up a short set of stairs, keeping my eyes fixed on the vibrant green grass ahead of me, whose color receded as quickly as I ran toward it.

I seemed to be keeping my distance from the Dahaka. It should've been impossible, with my short (comparatively speaking) stature, but— _When you're faced with your own death, the impossible becomes less of a barrier. _I couldn't quite help but grin wryly at the thought. Then my foot slipped on one of the steps, and I focused on _escape._ _I'd rather __**not**__ be absorbed by a giant black demon, if it's all the same to you!_ I thought fiercely at Fate, or Karma, or oak trees (or something).

I careened into a small garden shaded with trees (not oak, thank goodness), completely ignoring the several Raiders and Silhouettes stationed there, who seemed inclined to attack me; the knives that the latter threw missed by a mile, thanks to the frantic speed of my movement. My gaze darted about so quickly that I hardly had time to process the scene, half looking for an exit, and half searching my inner Prince of Persia database to try and remember if there _was _one. Then my eyes fell on the switch on a pillar at the back of the garden, and, with a sickening lurch in my stomach, I remembered: that switch triggered the only other way out of this place, a stone block that would give Prince enough height to reach a ledge from which he could jump out to a tree branch.

In simpler terms, I was _doomed._

There was just enough of my brain still functioning through the panic for me to keep on sprinting until I reached a foot-wide piece of masonry that protruded from the wall in the back corner of the garden. My momentum caused me to slam painfully into the wall when I spun around and stopped running, but I ignored the discomfort, cowering into my semi-sheltering nook and flinching when one of the Silhouettes' knives whipped past me. I considered trying to calm my loud, gasping breaths, but abandoned the idea upon realizing that it would be pointless anyway. _Prince forgot to mention that when you're faced with your own death, you are utterly __**terrified.**__ Even when technically you're already dead. _

I shut my eyes tightly, slid down until I was huddled against the wall in a crouched position, and waited to die. This time, at least, I was determined not to go out thinking of oak trees. I was about to ponder the meaning of life, love, and insufferability (or something equally deep), but then I remembered something, my eyes snapping open.

I screamed: "CHOCOLATE-COVERED COFFEE BEANS!" and went back to my contemplations, trying to ignore how the grass, which had acquired a green tint as I ran, was rapidly being leached of its color.

Around five minutes later, it occurred to me that things had gotten very silent, and no knives had come flying by my head for a few minutes. Then it occurred to me that I should probably have died a horrible death-by-Dahaka by this point. My hiding place couldn't actually have _worked_, could it? Everything was still in various shades of black-and-white, effectively informing me that I was nowhere _near _out of the woods yet, so I remained incredibly cautious as, swallowing, I craned my neck to peer around the edge of the wall, into the garden.

The Dahaka was staring at me. _Why? _I wondered, staring back. _Was he so shocked by the concept of chocolate-covered coffee beans that he went into a catatonic state? Has he suddenly realized that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is forty-two? _Strangely enough, my heartbeat had slowed appreciably, and my breathing followed suit. My body chose the _oddest _times not to panic.

There was a long moment of silence while I tried to puzzle the situation out, and the Dahaka just stood there looking like a giant black demon . . . probably because he was. Eventually I said: "If you're going to kill me, could you please do it quickly?"

He took a step forward, and I flinched back a bit, despite my words of bravado. **"EnilemiT siht ni gnoleb ton od uoy,"** he rumbled. _["You do not belong in this Timeline."]_

I blinked, wrinkling my brow and looking up at him in confusion. "Uh, I'm sorry, really, but I don't speak Pig Latin." Peering around to verify that the Sand creatures were gone, apparently having either fled or been absorbed, I stood up, turning to face the Guardian of the Timeline. "Pardon me if I'm wrong," I said politely, "but isn't this the part where you roar, 'You cannot escape your fate', absorb me, and then do some creepy victory dance to the beat of Godsmack?"

No, I did not have a death wish, but neither was I interested in prolonging the inevitable: if the Dahaka was chasing me it was for the sole purpose of eliminating me, and to be honest, this delay was ticking me off. I felt like a mouse being toyed with by a sadistic cat.

"**Etaf on **_**evah**_** uoy," **said the Dahaka, actually sounding rather baffled. I shrugged and frowned a little, having no idea what he'd said. _["You __**have **__no fate.]_

"Yeah, whatever," I muttered, looking down and trying determinedly (and failing miserably) to squash the small tendril of hope that was beginning to rear its head. _Well, he hasn't killed me yet . . ._

Taking a chance, I looked up again and tilted my head inquisitively, wondering aloud: "If you're not going to kill me, then what _are _you going to do?" To my everlasting astonishment, the demon looked at me and shrugged his massive black shoulders, apparently as clueless as I was. I took a deep breath. "If I left now, would you follow me?" He nodded, and I released the breath in a disappointed sigh. I sat back down with a huff, this time facing the Dahaka, and leaned back against the wall. My eyes scanned the sky, running over clouds, tree branches, and all manner of ledges and poles for the Prince to leap and swing and wall-run his way through.

After a time (inspired by the circumstances, perhaps) I started tapping, which transitioned to humming, and eventually I was singing _I Stand Alone_ at full belt, which would have been fine (I could carry a tune as well as the next person, just as long as the next person wasn't Kim), except for the fact that I attempted the screamo parts too. This went on for several minutes, involving a great deal of improvising on the lyrics and abusing my poor vocal chords. I couldn't read the Dahaka's dark, immovable features (which really looked more like a helmet that somebody had painted black than anything else), so, having had no prior warning, I nearly jumped out of my skin when he abruptly roared: **"PU TUHS!" **_["SHUT UP!"]_

I shut up. I didn't have to understand Dahaka-speech to get the gist of that. My fingers, though, went on tapping.

"Um . . ." I murmured a few minutes later. The Dahaka rumbled, which I assumed was his way of acknowledging that I had spoken. Unexpectedly, I had discovered that I was _bored_. It wasn't the sort of emotion I would have anticipated experiencing while being 'held hostage' by a giant black demon, but once the adrenaline wore off my thoughts began defaulting to weird scenarios involving books, armadillos, and chocolate (the latter associated with coffee beans, in this case): a sure sign that I was bored. I could deal with that under normal circumstances (boredom, whatever else it might be, was not life-threatening, unlike a certain demonic Guardian of the Timeline), but it had also occurred to me that if there was going to be an end to this impasse it was going to have to be initiated by me: the Dahaka could probably stand there staring at me until kingdom come and never be the slightest bit bothered. So, deciding to take my chances and see what happened, I announced: "I'm leaving now." I stood up and walked forward, disregarding the shudder that ran through me as I passed merely feet from the Dahaka. I could almost _feel_ the darkness emanating from him.

He didn't try to stop me; instead, as promised, he followed me. I'd gotten several feet away before there was a sort of rumbling noise from behind me and the earth began to tremble under my feet, regaining its marginally faded deathly gray hues. I went back the way I had come, strolling sedately down the stairs I had pelted up just a short time before and entering the courtyard with the turnstile. Once there, seeing no other options in a casual glance around the courtyard, I went up to the turnstile and grabbed the handle. When pushing against it proved fruitless, I tugged backwards, towards me, and finally it moved, causing the gate I had come through to close and one to my left to open after a full turn.

I glanced over my shoulder at the Dahaka before going through, as though to make sure he was still there. "Gray has got to get pretty monotonous after a while, hmm?" I remarked absently, continuing through the newly opened gate. He grunted, whether in agreement, annoyance, or just to shut me up I wasn't sure.

Entering the shaded passageway, I stiffened and stopped for an instant, then continued forward at a slower pace: there, shining blue and clear, seemingly unaffected by the pallor around it, was a water fountain. My first thoughts, half-formed and not very sensible, were something vague and excited involving fantastic and unlikely escape scenarios. But once rational thought caught up to me, I realized that one small fountain of water wouldn't be enough to even briefly deter the Dahaka.

That didn't mean that he was happy about it, though. A deep, intimidating growl rolled out from behind me as he caught sight of the fountain, making the hair raise on the back of my neck despite myself. Half just to spite him and half because it was automatic from my time playing the _Prince of Persia _games, I strode forward and bent, cupping both hands to scoop water up to my mouth.

Warmth and energy roared through me, sinking into my bones, like I'd just taken a gulp of strong, hot coffee on a chilly autumn morning. I gasped at the sensation, jerking back and spilling the rest of the handful of water onto my shirt. All of the bruises I had collected since my arrival had vanished, or at least I couldn't feel them anymore. _That is __**not **__normal, _I thought, staring wide-eyed at the fountain. Then I snorted aloud at the thought, my lips twisting into a wry grin. _Right. Because the rest of this situation is __**quite**__ normal, hmm?_

The Dahaka growled again, and this one somehow managed to take on a questioning tone. In response I explained quietly: "The water just startled me, that's all." I hesitated, curious (despite the fact that I was dead and things didn't really have to make sense) to see what made the water so—_rejuvenating. _I felt as fresh as I did, not when I first woke in the morning (I was more or less a zombie at that point), but a couple hours later, when some indefinable change came over me and I was suddenly really _awake._ "Do you know why it's so—_different _from ordinary water?" I asked, forgetting the uselessness of asking questions of someone whose answers you couldn't understand.

"**Cigam,"** rumbled the Dahaka darkly. Rumbling seemed to be his default manner of speech. I was pretty sure that he was incapable of speaking without a rumble; he'd probably spontaneously combust if he tried. **"SdnaS eht secnalab ti: cigam retaw."** _["Magic. . . . Water magic: it balances the Sands.]_

"Mhm," I murmured noncommittally, not looking at him. "Thanks." For all I knew he'd said something along the lines of: _"Shove off: none of your business," _but when one is being followed around by a giant black demon, it is generally a good policy to be polite to said giant black demon, just in case.

With one last dubious look at the fountain, its carving of a crazy-haired woman still spewing water out of her mouth like there was no tomorrow, I spun on my heel (just for dramatic flair, because I felt like it) and continued down the corridor at a brisk pace until I was unfortunately halted by the floor's abrupt ending. Drooping unhappily, I peered queasily down through several levels of ledges that would have, no doubt, been easy as breathing for Prince to navigate. Unfortunately, I wasn't him. In fact, I was really beginning to hate the guy. _Stupid monkey-madskillz. _I glared at the air, pretending that it was Prince.

Eventually, though, if I wanted to move on, I had to go this way. Unlike the other option (the 'attempt-to-wall-run-and-succeed-only-in-breaking-my-head-and-probably-the-rest-of-my-body' one), this route wasn't completely impassable for me: it was just . . . not ideally preferred.

There was a huff of air coming from a huge set of lungs behind me, and I jumped, startled: I'd almost forgotten that the Dahaka was there. Looking around at the sepia environment (a dead giveaway), I rolled my eyes at the rather ludicrous memory lapse. _Well, there are only two explanations for the rather dreary décor: either I'm __**really **__depressed, or the Dahaka is stalking me. For once in anyone's life, the latter is actually more likely than the former._

Resorting to truly desperate measures, I turned a pleading gaze to the Guardian of the Timeline. "You wouldn't happen to be willing to teleport me down there, would you?" I begged pathetically.

There was a pause as he looked at me with glowing white eyes, no expression at all on those immovable ebony features. **"GniR eht evah uoy. Flesruoy siht ekatrednu ton uoy od yhw?" **he asked finally, sounding like my words had puzzled him. _["You have the Ring. Why do you not undertake this yourself?"]_

I deflated impressively as I sighed, muttering: "I'll take that as a 'no'." Squaring my shoulders, I turned back to the Zillion Ledges of Doom. _It's interesting, _I mused as I sat down on the edge of the drop, turning and feeling with my foot until it found the first ledge, _the utterly nonsensical things one wishes to do when one is undertaking something dangerous and unpleasant. For instance: right now, I would like nothing so much as to close my eyes. That, however, would be both foolish and uncomforting, as it would greatly increase my likelihood of falling, and my knowledge of this fact would, obviously, not be very helpful in assuaging my fear. _

_Fear._ There: that was the word. It was a great deal easier to deal with now that I had admitted it was there, and when I peered over my shoulder at the ground below, which had gotten only a little nearer, my stomach didn't drop sickeningly to my feet as it had been wont to do. Pleased that my former non-terrified relationship with heights _(I be careful around you and you do your best not to kill me)_ had been reestablished, I made my way the rest of the way down with relative equanimity.

Unfortunately, when I got there, there was a Raider waiting for me. He tensed and lifted his sword into a guarded position, as apparently I had made some noise that gave me away, then finally turned, spotting me; his glowing yellow eyes narrowed. I was seriously considering turning around and scrambling back up those ledges as fast as I could go (maybe it was only one Raider, but he was _armed, _and he knew how to _fight, _which was already two points in his favor) when the Raider (whose headscarf, I had subconsciously registered, was a rusty red color) was suddenly doused in shades of gray.

I'd never been so relieved to see the Dahaka. Long black tentacles shot out of his muscled ebony torso, latching onto the Raider and pulling the screaming thing in to absorb him. Despite being indescribably creeped out, I watched with an expression of profound relief on my face.

"Thank you," I said simply but fervently when he was done. He looked at me, but as usual I hadn't the faintest idea what he was thinking. I had the feeling that he wasn't used to hearing that phrase directed towards him, though.

The massive being suddenly stiffened, bowing his head and clenching his fists. I took an uncertain step back, shocked and shivering with fear, when he suddenly turned his face to the hidden sky and howled, a deep, guttural, primal sound that chilled me to my very core, igniting some ancient instinct inside of me that urged me to flee, far and fast. When the noise stopped, though, he still trembled, his muscles tense, as though he were controlling the urge to howl again only with an effort. He stepped toward me (which, considering how long his legs were, brought us close in an instant) and despite my best intentions of bravery, I cowered back. When he bent down, though, it was only to touch my ring; I noticed that he emanated heat just like a human would, although he was perhaps slightly warmer, but his long, clawed fingers never touched my skin.

"**Tcejbo siht fo rewop eht wonk ton od ylnialp uoy. Yltnatsni—ereht ot ereh morf, uoy evom nac ti. GniR eht esu: dnah ruoy no tcafitrA na htiw ton, senord 'sserpmE eht raef ot deen ton od uoy."** It was the longest speech that I'd ever heard from him: length didn't improve my understanding. I could only stare blankly at his sinister, glowing white eyes, utterly bewildered, as he jerked abruptly, his gaze rising to the ceiling again. **"Og tsum I,"** he growled. Turning his back to me, he took a powerful leap upwards and vanished in a ripple of darkness and smoke. _["You plainly do not know the power of this object. It can move you, from here to there—instantly. You do not need to fear the Empress' drones, not with an Artifact on your hand: use the Ring. . . . I must go.]_

I blinked at the empty air. "Bye, Dahaka," I said to no one in particular. "Hello again, color."

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**AN: So, what thinks you of the Dahaka? He's turning out different than I had planned (Hehe, **_**Not What I Had Planned**_**), like my characters tend to do . . . even though he's not actually 'my' character. I rather like him, actually . . . *cough* Anywho, I didn't get my seven reviews last chapter—but I decided to update anyway, since it's been over a week and I was feeling rather guilty. **_**This**_** time, though (MUAHAHAHA!), I will not be so lenient. Review! **

**~Killer Zebra**

**P.S. Explaining the "water magic balances the Sands" comment: uh, one of my (10****th**** grade) Physical Science lessons may be to blame. This particular lesson was in relation to forces, etc, and it talked about how every force applied has an equal, automatic responding force: 'active' and 'reactive' forces. Applying the concept to the Sands (although it was only loosely inspired), I figured that they had to have some sort of balancing force, and once I thought of that, this magical healing-water stuff seemed to fit the role perfectly. So, when Sand is around, the water automatically changes (exerting an equal 'force', so to speak) to balance out the force of the Sands. **


	5. Maybe Later

**AN: I MISS LUCAN! *begins crying*  
OPOD: "Burble, burbleburble . . ." *pats back*  
No, it's NOT okay! All I have to work with here is a melodramatic Prince and someone with melon-boobs! Poor Jenny is probably going to be scarred for life!  
OPOD: *sigh*  
. . . Yeah, yeah, okay. Whatever. I should probably be thanking the reviewers for reviewing or something (even though I **_**still **_**didn't get my seven reviews . . . I just felt guilty for those of you that **_**did **_**review and had to wait anyway). ^_^**

**Disclaimer: See, why do you need elaboration when it's all summed up so neatly in that first word? I disclaim. This may be applied to all future chapters. **

**

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**

Jenny (narrating): _Alright, I could explain this. I'd gotten into a car accident, right? Maybe I was still unconscious, perhaps even in a coma, and was dreaming. Yeah. That worked. Except this had to be the most vivid dream I'd ever had, by __**far**__.__ I had that terrible headache, the stone floor was smooth and cool underneath me, and I could feel the individual fibers of the rope digging into my wrist.__** Yeah, so what? It's just an insanely vivid dream, **__I tried to convince myself. It worked . . . sort of.  
_**(Excerpt from Chapter 2 of **_**Not What I Had Planned)**_

_**

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**_

_Last Chapter: "Bye, Dahaka," I said to no one in particular. "Hello again, color."_

**Chapter 4: Maybe Later**

So, here I was, alone at the bottom of some weird hall thing with closed doors at both ends, most notably lacking a creepy color-leaching demon stalker. Meaning, at the mercy of any Sand creatures I might stumble upon. _Great. _Of course, the advantage to this was that I had no creepy color-leaching demon stalker . . . who had also, up to this point, been absorbing all of the Sand creatures that tried to attack me . . . and without whom I was probably going to die a swift and ignoble death . . .

Okay. Creepy and color-leaching or no, this was _not_ a good thing.

I crossed my arms over my chest unhappily, moving towards the opposite end of the hall that I had come from; they looked more or less identical, but I had a passably good sense of direction, and I hadn't exactly been spun around blindfolded. With an indecorous grunt, I jumped up to grab the first ledge and used my momentum and some graceless scrambling for purchase with my feet (or whatever they were) on the wall to heave myself up onto the ledge. It was, needless to say, not a terribly pleasant undertaking, although the annoyance the indignity caused was somewhat relieved by the proud satisfaction I garnered from being able to climb the simple ledges at all. My gaze rose to the next ledge, an innocuous horizontal outcropping of dark stone above me. _Well, whoop-dee-do. Now that I've gotten to __**this**__ ledge, I can climb up onto the __**next**__ one! O joy!_ I did so, then proceeded to climb the rest of the way to the top, ledge by ledge, pulling my face into ludicrous scowls and grimaces the entire way (just to truly express my abhorrence of the activity . . . and maybe slightly because I was bored). Unfortunately there was no audience to witness my fantastical feat of facial flexibility; this realization, of course, warranted another scowl.

From the very last ledge, I hoisted myself up onto a wide flagstone surface, flopping onto my back upon arrival to give my body a chance to recuperate. I listened for a time as the sweet trilling of birds and general hum of vibrant life slowly became audible over the thumping of my heart, absentmindedly playing with a strand of my hair. It was with reluctance that, several minutes later, I sat up from my prone position. I'd assumed that I'd never want to lie down again, now that I had some semblance of legs, but it seemed that my restless urge to move had dissipated now that moving was actually an _option. You want most what you can't have, _so the saying went, and it was seemingly true in my case.

Glancing around, I saw that the place I rested in was only a transitional area, rather than a full room as I had first assumed. There was an open gate a few feet in front of me, and beyond that was . . . space. Feeling a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, I stood and stepped forward, supporting myself on one side of the gate-frame as I looked down. Spread out below me in a panorama of various shades of green was the Garden Hall, its flourishing vegetation doing nothing to hide the patrolling Raiders from my elevated position. Directly beneath me was an enormous stone bust of a man holding some sort of tablet, the 'tablet' really being an equally oversized fountain, spilling water into a pool on the ground below. A pole jutted out from the wall above the statue's head; within easy jumping distance for the Prince . . . _**Drat**__ him!_

Needless to say, what was 'easy' for the Persian royal would've been a death sentence for me to attempt. My annoyance wasn't even alleviated when I realized that even if I _could've _jumped out to the pole, it wouldn't have done me any good: it was meant to be accessed by a wall-run and jump from the other direction. Unfortunately, the actual route away from this place was no more accommodating to my nonexistent madskillz. It consisted of an indented ledge to the right of the open gate, then a smooth trip down from there, using a blade and the conveniently positioned long red curtain there to slow the descent. There remained the small problem that I didn't even have a _butter_-knife(I scolded myself roundly for not having had the presence of mind to arm myself from one of the weapons racks I had spotted on the way here, despite knowing that I'd been _slightly _distracted by a certain Guardian of the Timeline), although if I'd had the right equipment it might have been within my limits to slide down the curtain. Besides, now that I thought about it I wasn't too terribly eager to make the acquaintance of the Raiders waiting down there, anyway. Not without my friendly neighborhood Dahaka around to absorb them for me.

Turning away from the opening, I closed my eyes, leaned my forehead against the cool stone wall, and groaned with frustration. Why did _every single path _have to involve roundabout, twisted, impossible acrobatics?

As irony would have it, it was right around this time that my clenched fist slammed without conviction against the wall, then relaxed, sliding down and encountering . . . something: a discrepancy in the regular pattern of stones on the wall. I opened my eyes and looked. There, slightly to my left, was a wide, vertical crack, just large enough that a petite person might be able to fit inside of it. _Of course. _A smile flickered across my lips, half smug and half just relieved that I wasn't trapped in limbo after all.

Scrunching myself as small as possible without bending down, I edged sideways into the opening; I had never been so grateful to be short (or, for that matter, that I wasn't the least bit claustrophobic). Maneuvering the length of the crack (which, miraculously, didn't narrow as it got deeper in) proved to be more difficult than I'd anticipated, all the same. In _The Sands of Time _Farah always made it look easy, but she must've either been smaller than I was or just have had a talent for making things appear simpler than they were, because it took me a good ten minutes to move the several feet between the entrance and exit point of the crack, twisting and wriggling all the way to keep from scraping myself on the abrasive stone or getting stuck. It was hard to judge direction in the stifling confines of the crack, but I was obviously moving downward, and thought that I'd perceived a bit of a right curve as well.

When I finally came out, it was in a small, dark room, unlit by the braziers that seemed to thoroughly pervade the rest of the island fortress. A subtle flaw in the ceiling stone allowed a shaft of light to enter, illuminating the silhouette of a dead tree (slowly starved from lack of sunlight, most likely), its blackened branches arching over me in a twisted, looming stance. I sniffed, wrinkling my nose a little at the smell of the stale air, then moved forward, propelled by idle curiosity, and felt the bark of the tree until my questing fingers encountered a curling edge. I proceeded to peel a hand-sized piece off to examine in the narrow beam of light.

I paled.

"Oh my dear armadillos." I took a cautious step back, all the while informing myself sternly that there was no reason at all to be concerned. No _real _reason, anyway.

Then the oak tree creaked and began to tip towards me, its rotting roots apparently having been destabilized by my tampering, and I stopped worrying about reasons and promptly launched myself in the opposite direction (just in time to escape being smooshed _again_), into an open archway that I somehow hadn't noticed there before.

Coughing in the dust that the ancient oak tree had created, I got up onto my hands and knees, then proceeded to ineffectually attempt to brush the dirt out of the newly created scrapes in my elbows. Then I paused, realizing that I could _see _my elbows (and everything else) quite clearly, despite the fact that merely seconds before I'd been in almost complete darkness. _That can't be right,_ I thought, finally looking around to see where I had landed.

It was a hallway, flagged with brown sandstone rather than the usual gray stuff in this fortress. Strange symbols were painted on the walls, and diaphanous, transparent curtains hung down from the ceiling. I blinked, certain that I recognized the place, but knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that it didn't belong here anymore than I did. I said as much.

"You don't belong here. You're from _The Sands of Time,_" I explained patiently, not at all sure why I was talking to a hallway. "This is _Warrior Within._"

The passage seemed to ripple a little, like the impressive, magical, hallway-esque version of a shrug. When the ripple reached me, though, I felt no movement under the soles of my feet, and after staring into the inky blackness that the hallway ended in for a long moment, my eyes narrowed suspiciously, I decided that I must've imagined it.

Small but sharp, anger flared suddenly. "This is all a dream, anyway," I hissed into the void, ignoring the uselessness of ranting at an inanimate object. "I'm _dead_; you understand? I don't care what you are or what game you belong in, your magical healing fountain of water can't fix that." The inevitable pain that uttering the words brought only fueled my temper, and, spinning around, I stalked back out into the dark room I had come from, remembering the oak tree and deciding that I just didn't care.

I'd half expected the passageway to disappear once I left it, but it remained there, as though waiting for me to return, its light spilling enough illumination into the room for me to easily push past the brittle branches of the fallen oak tree and reach a crack I'd spotted (different from the one that I'd come from, of course). Reaching in with one hand to ensure that there wasn't a dead end directly beyond the opening, I entered the crack. I stopped there for a moment before continuing my journey, though, suddenly a little subdued, and hoped that I wasn't going to regret the missed opportunity.

It wasn't long before, detaching my tangled mane of hair from a rough bit of stone, I peered ahead of me and spotted a glimmer of light. Cheered by the literal and metaphorical 'light at the end of the tunnel', I made haste to wriggle the rest of the way through, finally stumbling into the open only to spectacularly get my foot caught just as it left the crack, sending me sprawling into a shallow pool of water.

I spluttered and coughed, shoving myself out of the water hurriedly and standing, then proceeded to grimace and spit hair out of my mouth, as a second thought combing my fingers through it so as to somewhat tame it while it was still wet. _Well, _I thought, cautiously optimistic as I surveyed my soaked clothing, _maybe there's an upside to having some freaky Sand-vortex instead of legs after all: it doesn't seem to get wet._ I was a bit surprised, actually, that my "pretend it's a real pair of legs" policy was slowly becoming unnecessary. If I looked at it objectively, I was still pretty leery about the concept of having Sand for a lower body, but living with it had gotten me accustomed quickly. It was hard to stay constantly freaked-out when no immediate disaster was resulting, and it wasn't like I could do anything about it, anyway. I sighed, still working the tangles out of my hair.

But, as usual, I'd forgotten to take note of anything but my immediate surroundings.

"Filthy human! You will die, like all your kind!" someone screeched from the other side of the room. I jumped, startled; for some reason my hand started for my waist, as though a sword should've been there. A quick glance around revealed that I was standing in the Garden Hall, in a pool beneath the enormous bust of some guy in a weird headdress, completely unarmed, and with several Raiders bent on my immediate demise charging at me with weapons brandished threateningly.

So, I did what any sensible person would do in the same situation: I ran. Unlike most sensible people would probably do, however, I ran _towards _the Raiders rather than away from them. The rush of air cooled my damp skin as I charged, head down, reassuring myself doubtfully that, no, I was _not _insane, it's just that there wasn't any other direction to run in: I was closed in on three sides.

As I had hoped, the Raider nearest me faltered in confusion as I ran at him with no sign of slowing, giving me the opportunity to take advantage of his hesitation and dart around him before he could react. After that, I was out of the narrow section and into the main Garden Hall, and, unlike when I had been running from the Dahaka, there were plenty of easily accessible escape routes here; I bolted for the nearest one, my feet pounding a frantic rhythm into the turf.

"Stand tall, human, and face your fate!" one Sand creature shouted, sounding enraged that his group's 'prey' was escaping them.

"Maybe later!" I yelled over my shoulder, running down the corridor (which, if I wasn't mistaken, eventually led to the Main Hall), skidding around a corner— and cannoning straight into a broad, well-muscled chest, which, unfortunately, happened to be covered in stiff leather armor.

"OW!" I yelled, stumbling back and clutching my nose. Blood was pouring down my face, and judging by the pain stabbing through my nose, it was broken. "What the heck did you do that for?" I demanded accusingly, looking up at my nemesis. His dark brown hair was about jaw-length, although it was shorter on one side than the other, he had intense blue-green eyes, and young, strong features. Except . . . the eyes looked worn, weary, and some of their intensity came from the blazing desperation lurking just beneath the surface, throwing off his otherwise youthful appearance. The leather vest of armor he wore came down from his shoulders in a 'V', meeting at the point where, carefully fastened in by metal clips, a circular amulet rested, decorated by a symbol I recognized: the Sands. His breeches might once have been black, but they'd faded to a dark, charcoal gray, and his legs were covered from the knee down by heavy, armored boots. _Ah, _I thought, recognizing him. _Princey-boy._

"_You_ ran into _me_," he protested, sounding exasperated. Then he seemed to catch himself. He looked at me and froze. _"Jenny?"_ he breathed incredulously. I opened my mouth to ask _why _the heck it was that seemingly _everybody _in this fortress knew my name (although the Empress had merely recognized it when I gave it to her, while the Prince seemed to actually know who I was), but I was interrupted.

"Do as you are told and _kill _him!" one of the Raiders snarled to another.

Prince shook himself out of his apparent shock; the haunted look which had briefly left his eyes returned full force, and his expression hardened as he drew his sword and swept it at the approaching Raiders threateningly. "Ha! You aren't worth my time," he taunted.

Still holding my nose in an attempt to stop the blood flow, I raised an eyebrow, not bothering to be subtle as I edged around until Prince was between me and the Sand creatures. "If they aren't worth your time, then why are you fighting them?" I wondered skeptically.

He glared briefly, but otherwise ignored my comment, being occupied with the attacking Raiders. Despite being slightly irritated that the creatures that would've killed me were little more than an annoyance for Prince, I couldn't help but be impressed at how quickly he took them down. When the first one came at him, he vaulted over him and slashed as he came down, the movement bringing him close enough to the wall that he could then run up it, swords still drawn, and flip backwards, using the momentum to execute powerful blows to two Sand creatures at once, slaying them both instantly. They dissolved into Sand, but his Amulet must've already been full, because he didn't wait to absorb the two small, glowing spheres, instead turning directly to attacking the two remaining Raiders.

Curiosity roused now that I was no longer in immediate danger, I crept forward, reaching out to touch one hovering, concentrated bit of Sand. I jerked back quickly, suppressing a gasp, when the glowing sphere started moving to meet my approaching hand. I couldn't move away fast enough, though; the Sand darted closer until it was above my hand, flashed brighter for a moment, forcing me to squint, and was absorbed into—my ring?

* * *

**AN: WOOT! Prince is here! Yaaaay! :D How did I do in this chapter? I'm a little concerned that Jenny is OOC (she **_**can **_**be made out of character, even by me, since this is the second fanfic she's starred in). Anyway, review please!**

**~Killer Zebra**

**P.S. The paragraph describing the hallway leading to the magic-fountain was taken almost verbatim from **_**Not What I Had Planned. **_**Just thought I'd let you know that I did that on purpose.**


	6. That Guy From WalMart

**AN: I am so brain dead that it's not even funny. I feel like I'm being drowned in an endless abyss of schoolwork . . . So if I sound slightly insane, that's why. If I sound more than slightly insane, that's probably also why. It may also have something to do with the fact that my dentist has me all drugged up right now . . . **

**Thanks to all of my reviewers! I reply to those of you who have accounts, but I don't usually if you leave an anonymous review. If you don't have an account and would like me to reply in the next chapter, just ask. Otherwise, thanks bunches! Your input is very much appreciated. :)**

[o{o}o]

Raya (to Jenny): _"The seven Artifacts of Time. This is their home world, but when Time began, they were distributed out among the other six dimensions by the Guardian of the Timeline. They are the Hourglass, the Dagger, the Staff, the Amulet, the Ring, the Compass, and the Mirror. Their only purpose, their only desire is to return to the world in which they were created, in which the Sands and the Hourglass reside. The only way that they can travel through worlds, however, is if they find the right bearer: a bearer whose soul they can fit into, can intertwine themselves with, and use as a vessel to carry them to the destination of their choice."_

**(Excerpt from Chapter 10 of **_**Not What I Had Planned)**_

[o{o}o]

_Last Chapter: The Sand darted closer until it was above my hand, flashed brighter for a moment, forcing me to squint, and was absorbed into—my ring?_

**Chapter 5: That Guy From Wal-Mart**

I was still standing there, stunned, when Prince, apparently finished with dealing with the Raiders, approached slowly, staring at me like I was something strange and astonishing. I was fairly sure that it wasn't because my nose was crooked and bloody from the break.

"Did you see that?" I asked without thinking, my voice sounding strangely tinny to my own ears.

There was a pause.

"See what?" came the hesitant response.

"I suppose that answers my question," I murmured, finally looking up at him. It was a little sad, I reflected, that of _any _of the three games, I had to be dropped into _Warrior Within._ Prince had always been one of my favorite characters (although it was indescribably awkward to be thinking that when said 'character' was standing in front of me), but in this game not only was there no Farah or Dark Prince for him to argue entertainingly with, but he had _utterly_ lost his sense of humor. He spent his time running around calling lame insults at Sand creatures, staring at Kaileena's 'assets', and praying to the god of armadillos that the Dahaka wouldn't catch him.

"What _happened _to you?" the Prince suddenly gasped, sounding horrified. Confused, I was about to ask what he was talking about—then I followed his gaze to my legs. Or, rather, my lack thereof.

"Oh," I said dismissively. "That's my method of transportation, since my usual one is, er . . ." my lips twisted into an ironic grin, ". . . damaged. I ran into the Empress and she decided to help me out." I decided to leave out the small details that 'the girl in red' and the Empress were synonymous, and that she most certainly had had ulterior motives for aiding me in 'doing what I must'.

He didn't gape, but his eyes widened until I thought that they'd pop out of their sockets. "The Empress—_helped_ you? But she— you— I—?"

Knowing exactly what he was saying, despite his apparent inability to form a coherent sentence, I said calmly, "She has no love for the world of men. I am not a man." _And I'm pretty sure that I'm not destined to kill her, either._ If Prince's reception to the Island of Time hadn't exactly been warm and welcoming, it was understandable.

"Jenny?"

I looked sharply at him, once again wondering about the suspiciously familiar way he used my name. "You may call me Jennifer," I said coolly, because familiarity wasn't something I wanted to encourage.

Prince's expression fell a little (quite a feat, considering how melancholy he'd already looked beforehand). "You don't remember me," he said in a disappointed but resigned tone of voice.

I looked at him, blinking innocently. "Of _course _I remember you. You're that one guy that I saw at Wal-Mart that one time . . ." I halted and snapped my fingers suddenly, feigning realization. "No, wait, I've got it! You're that Persian Prince who's fated to die by the hand (or tentacle) of a humongous black demon because you released the Sands of Time and messed with everybody's Timeline-y plans by not dying, am I right?"

His mouth was set in a grim line, clearly indicating that he was unamused. He didn't even ask what Wal-Mart was. "You know _this_ story too, then," he murmured, the flame beneath his eyes igniting again. Despite myself, I took a small, shuffling step back from him; when he was nothing but a moving figure on a screen it had been all too easy to feel nothing but exasperation at the pessimistic, melodramatic character that the Prince had turned into, but meeting him now . . . I had never seen a being so terribly _consumed _by the drive to survive. The look in his eyes was that of a trapped animal, so crazed and overcome by fear and desperation that it would do _anything_ to escape the fate it saw looming. And that look . . . it made me afraid.

The royal moved so quickly that I never saw him coming. One moment he was a few feet away, the next he was merely inches from me, his hands gripping my shoulders to hold me in place as his gaze bore into mine. "What happens?" he demanded. "I know that you have knowledge beyond what you should. How does this story end? Tell me!" Despite his rough, commanding tone and actions, I noticed that, though his hold on my shoulders was rigid and immovable, he never applied enough pressure to cause me pain. My fear receded a little; perhaps he was not completely consumed after all.

Then I remembered: _You're dead. He's not real. None of this is. _

I looked up at Prince, resentment stirring in my heart that, despite the knowledge that all of this was but illusion, he had still managed to make me feel sympathy. I couldn't afford to start caring. My heart hardened, and when I opened my mouth, it was to say perhaps the cruelest words that I could have contrived: "No one can change their fate."

His face went white, and he released me abruptly, stepping backwards. Almost unconsciously I reached up to rub the places where his hands had been, already feeling the guilt seeping through every pore in my body. _That was uncalled for, _some small part of me that might've been my conscience admonished. I squashed the thought, reminding myself that the empty, despairing expression in those blue-green eyes wasn't any more real than he was. It didn't help.

"I see," Prince said heavily. He looked defeated, like he'd given up . . . and that was the last straw in the brief but intense wrestle between me and my conscience.

"So that's it?" I wondered aloud, my disbelief clear in my tone. "You're just going to give up, just like that? I mean, the Old Man said the same thing, and so did the Empress, and Shahdee, _and_ the Dahaka, but since _I _told you it _must_ be true, right? You know, even though you just met me?" I wrinkled my brow. "Speaking of which, how did you know my name, anyway?"

Prince straightened as he looked at me; a little of the life came back to his eyes, and his lips quirked into something that was almost a smile. "We've met before," he said mysteriously.

I was unimpressed. "Oh, thanks. That's so informative." The sarcasm was heavy in my tone. "Did we meet in Wal-Mart after all?"

He frowned at me. "What is _'Wal-Mart'_?" he asked, obviously puzzled. _About time._

"A . . . market," I shrugged finally, not wanting to explain further. "You never really answered my question."

He was silent for so long that I almost thought he wasn't going to reply. Eventually, though, he said quietly: "You were there when I opened the Sands."

I laughed out loud. "Sure I was. Then I turned into possibly the most pathetic Sand creature in existence, and was promptly killed by you." I snorted at the idea of my being a bloodthirsty Sand creature: my proficiency in weaponry extended to an impressive skill with a kitchen knife (when I was using it for the decimation of carrots and celery, that is) and occasionally the handgun that my dad kept in the house and had taught me to use 'just in case'. The idea of me trying to kill anybody was pretty well ludicrous.

"No, actually," said the Prince, recapturing my attention, "you didn't." I raised both eyebrows, curious despite myself. Before I could ask, Prince gestured pointedly to the piece of jewelry on the index finger of my left hand.

My ring. I'd almost forgotten about its inexplicable Sand-absorbing behavior while distracted by the conversation. "What about it?" I questioned, trying not to sound as disturbed as I suddenly felt. The ring was tied to some difficult things in my life—both of which I had decided to pin on oak trees rather than the ring, but still, why did I choose to keep it? Why did I feel the strange, hardly acknowledged need to keep it close to me? Why, despite it all, did it bring back few negative emotions with the dark memories it held?

"It's an Artifact," he told me, like that should mean something.

I smiled blankly, able to tell by the emphatic way he said 'Artifact', as though it should be capitalized, that he meant more than just the usual sense of the word. "Oh, I see. What's an Artifact again?"

He frowned and shook his head, looking down. When his eyes met mine again, they were filled with sadness and memories. "Of course you wouldn't know," he murmured, almost to himself. "I'd forgotten." He blinked, almost visibly shaking himself out of the melancholy, and when he spoke again his voice was carefully unrevealing. "When Time was created, so were seven Artifacts, able to harness its knowledge and power. There was the Hourglass, the Dagger, the Staff, the Amulet, the Mirror," a shadow passed over his eyes again as he named the next Artifact, "the Compass, and . . . the Ring. Your Ring. They each grant different abilities, but all have the power to protect their wearer from the Sands' corruption, as yours did."

My eyes went wide, staring at him. I realized that I was actually _considering _what he was saying, as though there was a possibility that it could be true, and instantly knew that I couldn't hear any more and still retain what little objectivity I had left.

"Stop," I said, my voice much steadier than I felt. "I don't want to hear any more."

When Prince opened his mouth to speak, his puzzlement at my statement clear on his features, I sent him a warning glare. Then . . . his expression changed, from puzzled, to sort of . . . knowing and slightly amused. "Really?" he inquired, sounding almost like the darkness I had seen inside of him was nothing more than my imagination. "You don't want to know? You're not curious in the _slightest?_"

Of course, my curiosity was _killing _me, but I wasn't about to let him know that.

I sniffed. "No."

Astonishingly, he grinned, the expression brightening his features, reminiscent of better days. "I don't believe that," he said, turning and walking into the Garden Hall as he spoke. "The day you're not curious about anything will be the day that . . ." he shook his head, apparently at a loss for words as he gazed around, taking in 'the wonders of hanging gardens'. "The day you're not curious about anything will be the day I find out that . . . that the girl in red is the _Empress,_" he finally said, sounding satisfied that this statement was appropriately impossible.

I wasn't quite able to contain a snort, but when he looked at me inquisitively I just shook my head, although _now _my curiosity was bugging me about how exactly Prince knew about my habit of questioning anything and everything—inside, at the very least. I finally decided that it was just another one of those unfathomable dream-quirks, and dismissed it as unimportant. It was vaguely unnerving, though: it made me feel exposed that he could read and predict me so easily, while my experience of him was limited to a pixilated figure on a screen.

The Garden Hall was undeniably lovely, the flourishing greenery and bright sunshine streaming in creating a false impression of tranquility. It was hard to believe now, in this place, that merely minutes before I had been fleeing across this very ground with monstrous creatures close in pursuit. In front of us, the centerpiece of the Hall, was an octagonal pattern of pillars that supported ivy-draped beams, surrounded by pools of water and with a large statue at the center of a woman pouring water from a jar while simultaneously displaying her naked breasts to the best advantage. I rolled my eyes, thinking irritably that I would've expected better taste, considering that the fortress _was _owned and created by a woman. _Maybe the sculptor was a Sand creature that rebelled, or something,_ I mused absentmindedly, continuing to take in the beautiful scenery as I trailed after Prince. On the right side of the Hall from where Prince had entered were two by-ways, each with one of the huge, tablet-holding busts of men-wearing-funny-headdresses-and-spewing-water-out-of-their-mouths. High up in of one of these, I knew, there was an open gateway that I had gazed down from not so very long ago.

_How long __**have**__ I been here?_ I wondered curiously. So much had happened that it didn't seem altogether long, especially since the water I had drank seemed to energize me at least as much as a full night of sleep would, but on the same token, so much had happened that it had to have been longer than it felt. When I glanced up, the sun seemed to be shining as brightly as ever, although I couldn't pinpoint the source, so finally I gave up attempting to puzzle out the time of day. After all, it _was _the Island of Time: for all I knew, it was always noon here or something.

It never seemed to be an issue that Prince and I would be traveling together from this point on. It didn't even occur to me to bring the subject up until I had been trailing behind him in the Garden Hall for some time, and he appeared to take it for granted that he would automatically take up the position of 'hero' to my 'damsel in distress'. I wasn't sure that I was altogether fond of the idea.

Apparently Prince wasn't either, because when he stumbled upon a weapons rack in a leafy alcove (metaphorically) and a mere second later I stumbled upon it as well (literally), cracking the brittle wood, he reached down and grabbed the sword there (a common Raider's weapon), standing and offering it to me, hilt-first. I raised my eyebrows in surprise at the Prince, then eyed the weapon doubtfully, unsure if putting a large, sharp implement into my inexpert hands was the best idea. I _did_ want to have some means of defending myself when Prince wasn't around, though, and despite that he could disarm me in an instant if he so chose, the fact that he thought I could be _trusted _with a large, sharp implement made me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside. I reached forward and grasped the hilt, hefting it experimentally and noting with surprise that it was actually lighter than I'd expected, considering its size and composition. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was Sand-forged. Now there was only one problem:

"Where do I keep it?" I questioned helplessly, searching about my person as though there were a possibility that a sword belt would miraculously appear there. Prince frowned, obviously not having thought of that. My gazed passed over him, looking for something that I could use as a makeshift sheath—then darted back, eyeing his waist (which had to have had at least three belts encircling it) speculatively.

Prince saw where my gaze had landed; his expression briefly turned mutinous, but then he sighed in resignation. Obviously reluctant, he unbuckled one of the belts and unwound it from his waist, thrusting it at me and glaring at the ground all the while. I grinned, cheerfully accepting it from his proffered hands. His expression reminded me of nothing so much as a sullen child.

"Thanks!" I said, wrapping the strap of leather around my hips and then fastening it carefully in front. I promptly slid my new weapon into one of the various sturdy loops on the belt, then jostled it a bit until I was satisfied that its position was secure.

Prince moved quickly out of the alcove, and I made to follow, but then he stopped suddenly, almost making me run into his back. Without turning, he said slowly, as though he were reluctant to ask the question: "If no one can change their fate, then why do you still follow me?"

My lighthearted mood faded, but . . . I didn't want to be cruel anymore.

"There's a first time for everything," I said quietly.

Immediately I felt relieved, like a weight had been lifted off of me; Prince's shoulders relaxed slightly, and he released an almost inaudible sigh, as though he felt the same (although certainly for different reasons). When he continued forward his step seemed lighter, and mine was as well, although I wore a rather self-deprecating smile on my lips. Despite all my vows not to start caring about anything or anyone in this fictional realm, I realized now that the very makeup of my being dictated this to be impossible. Some of it was just human nature, the tendency to become attached to people and things that I spent a prolonged period of time with, just as long as that person or thing wasn't utterly, nerve-gratingly unbearable. Also, though, it just went against the grain for me to be so callous: not only did my conscience protest against purposely hurting a 'person' that didn't deserve it (even when my rational side knew that the Prince wasn't, in actuality, a 'person'), but it was just habit for me to be friendly, _especially, _rather than 'even', to relative strangers (friends knew me well enough not to take the occasional thoughtlessly harsh comment to heart). When I was concentrating I could remain cool and aloof, but the moment my attention turned to something else I would fall back into the ingrained behaviors of a lifetime, forgetting that I was supposed to be uncaring.

With a feeling of signing my own death warrant, I gave in. _Alright, have it your way, _my sensible side said wearily to my conscience, _but don't come crying to me when you break your heart over things that aren't even real._ I looked at Prince's back as he moved away from me. _You'll regret this later, _something whispered warningly at the edges of my consciousness. My ire roused abruptly at the words: I'd made my decision, and that was that! _But at least I'll feel alive again in the meantime, _I retaliated fiercely. The dissenting voices were silent at that, and, satisfied, I followed after Prince.

[o{o}o]

**AN: Phew! *wipes brow* I read through and edited this chapter about a zillion times before I was satisfied. In fact, I almost rewrote it totally, but changed my mind at the last moment. The trouble was Prince: I knew how the Prince of **_**Not What I Had Planned **_**would react to Jenny's return, and I knew how the Prince of **_**Warrior Within **_**would react to Jenny's return, but I wanted aspects of both, and the melding just seemed . . . awkward. I hope that I smoothed it out some, but please review and let me know! **

**~Killer Zebra**


	7. Keep in Touch

**AN: Last day of finals for me! *does happy dance* But that also means that I have a buttload of schoolwork that I should be doing right now rather than posting . . . Better get to it, hmm? :) Thanks so much to everybody who reviewed, especially those who are in the same jam as I am! **

[o{o}o]

Jenny (to Lucan): _"Oh, shut up. You were right. Trying to teleport __**was**__ the sensible thing to do. It's not your fault that it happened to be a crazy death-trap of doom."  
_**(Excerpt from Chapter 8 of **_**Not What I Had Planned)**_

[o{o}o]

_Last Chapter:  
__**You'll regret this later,**__ something whispered warningly at the edges of my consciousness. My ire roused abruptly at the words: I'd made my decision, and that was that! __**But at least I'll feel alive again in the meantime,**__ I retaliated fiercely. The dissenting voices were silent at that, and, satisfied, I followed after Prince._

**Chapter 6: Keep in Touch**

Prince seemed to be rather at a loss as to what to do next. He'd made a complete round of the Garden Hall, exploring just about every nook and cranny, and yet he still hadn't discovered any way out but the one he'd come through. I tilted my head, wondering if I should inform him that, completely clueless, he'd just passed underneath the ladder he needed to climb in order to proceed.

That brought up another issue, though: as much as I would love to join up with Prince on his quest not to die in any of the zillions of available ways, it was only a matter of time until we would come to a place where he could move on and I could not, and at that point we'd have no choice but to separate. Why prolong the inevitable?

Prince had halted and was standing a little beyond the ladder, his arms akimbo and his feet planted just a little too firmly to be casual, glaring around the room as though he could intimidate it into revealing the next step. Sighing, I jogged forward and tugged on his elbow. He swung around quickly. His swords were half drawn before he really registered who it was that was touching him, and he promptly slid them back into their sheathes, his expression vaguely sheepish.

"Jeesh, twitchy," I commented, taking a step away and eyeing him with exaggerated alarm. He just looked at me, unamused, and I rolled my eyes, wordlessly pointing upwards (coincidentally, I was standing almost exactly underneath the ladder).

Prince's gaze followed the line of my gesture, his eyes narrowing slightly when he saw the ladder. I got the impression that he was annoyed at not having spotted it himself. With no prior warning at all, he stepped forward and grabbed my waist, lifting me up to the wooden bars; I was too startled to utter anything but a soft squeak of protest. As soon as my wits caught up to me, though, I latched onto the structure with hands and feet, taking my weight off of Prince's arms.

"Way to _warn _me!" I said indignantly, glaring down at him. He only shrugged, and with a sigh, I turned my attention to climbing upward.

I climbed the last few rungs of the ladder and, now on solid ground, straightened and looked around me. "Hello," I said politely to the Crow Master, sidestepping away.

"Come closer, girl, and meet your defeat," he said in a rippling, echoing voice as he raised his saber.

"That rhymes," I pointed out, glancing back to see if Prince was visible on the ladder yet. He wasn't. "It would be better if you said 'Come closer, girl, and meet your _demise._' 'Meet your defeat' just sounds weird."

Apparently surprised at my correction, the Crow Master halted his gradual, drifting forward motion, tilting his head in an unnerving birdlike manner. After a moment, he nodded sharply and continued his advance, squashing the cautiously optimistic thoughts that'd begun to surface inside me. _Where_ was Prince?

"You are right," the Sand creature conceded. All thoughtful mannerisms vanished, then, and he positively _loomed _as he hissed menacingly, "Come closer, girl, and meet your demise."

I couldn't help but grin, despite the fact that I'd reached the edge of the balcony and was unable back up any further without falling. "Very good," I said approvingly. Then: "Okay. I've met my demise already, actually, but it's always good to keep in touch with old acquaintances." While the Crow Master was still blinking his yellow eyes in confusion from that statement (it was doubtful that that was the response he usually got), I whipped my oddly light sword out and toward his middle, hoping to catch him off guard.

I didn't . . . but Prince did. Neither I nor the Crow Master had noticed his emergence from below, and so while the Sand creature was blocking my sudden blow, Prince attacked from behind, making him screech in pain and turn quickly to guard against this unexpected new antagonist.

"You will be honored to die by my sword!" bellowed the royal. I looked pleadingly skyward.

Prince vaulted over the Crow Master, apparently unhindered by the creature's unusual height, and rained down blows until his opponent dissolved into a flock of crows, which promptly fled, shrieking with impotent fury. Prince lowered his blade and stared after them, his features shifting from what I was beginning to think of as his default expression (grim . . . or maybe sullen, but I chose 'grim' for the sake of the poor man's dignity) to outright annoyance.

"Birdbrain!" I yelled after the retreating crows (on Prince's behalf, since he was far too serious and melodramatic to do any such thing). He snapped out of his half-trance to give me an odd look, and I just shrugged in response.

Above and to either side of us were two more platforms, although only one of them had a ladder leading up to it; if I recalled correctly (and judging by the direction the crows had flown in, I did), this was where the Crow Master now waited. I said as much to Prince, then paused, adding as an afterthought, "Uh . . . you should probably go up first this time."

His nod of agreement was grave, but his lips twitched suspiciously as he ascended the ladder. I followed closely after . . . just in case. My caution proved needless, though: when we reached the top, the Crow Master proved to be as easy to deal with the second time as he had the first (or so I assumed . . . mostly I just stood and watched), although, again like the first time, he fled before Prince could finish him off. On this instance, though, his flight path was visible, and we could see where he landed: another platform, this one reachable through a wall-run and jump. Well . . . reachable for Prince. I sighed, approaching the royal and clearing my throat to capture his attention, and he turned to me, raising an eyebrow in question. I almost laughed at the expression, merely because it had occurred to me that it wasn't amusing at all, and thus was hilarious, but remembering why I had come over sobered me quickly.

"_He's_ over _there_ . . ." I said suggestively, indicating the Crow Master. Prince nodded, his expression becoming vaguely bemused. "And _we're_ over _here_," I continued to hint, looking pointedly at the ground at my feet, then back up at Prince. When he _still _didn't seem to understand, I sighed, slightly exasperated. "Look, Prince, it's been great, but we obviously have to separate now. I can't do the . . ." I waved my hand in a vague swirling motion, ". . . _things_ that you do."

_Finally,_ comprehension dawned on his features. But he didn't react quite the way I'd expected: rather than being at all upset, he appeared amused, one corner of his mouth turning up in a barely-there smirk.

"Gee," I muttered, nettled and a little hurt, "don't look so dratted _happy_. If you wanted _that _bad to get rid of me, why didn't you just say so?"

"No, no, it's not that," Prince assured me. His faintly smug smile hadn't disappeared, and had, in fact, widened a little. "It's just that you don't have to. Do what I do, that is." He paused, almost as though waiting for something_ (The opportune moment?)_, then announced, "You can teleport."

I opened my mouth with a denial on the tip of my tongue; closed it again; said, "Really?"

He nodded.

I felt a grin spread over my features. "Cool. How?" If this was true, then the Dahaka's confusion when I asked him to teleport for me suddenly made a little more sense . . .

"It's the ability that your Ring gives you," he explained, "but it does have limits." He grimaced, muttering something under his breath that sounded like, _"Should probably explain those now, before she kills herself."_ I didn't think that I was supposed to have heard that part.

"Jenny," Prince said seriously, meeting my eyes as though to impress the importance of his words on me. Perversely, I was pleased that he'd ignored my politely phrased demand that he call me 'Jennifer'. "Your power is extremely useful, but it can also be dangerous if used incorrectly. You must never, ever, under _any _circumstances attempt to teleport to somewhere that isn't directly in your line of vision." He hesitated at my vaguely alarmed expression, then added, "I'm not sure exactly what happens, but I do know that it's not good." As though to dispel the foreboding atmosphere that his words had brought, he said in a lighter tone, "You shouldn't try to teleport through solid objects either, but the only consequences from that would be a few painful bruises." He even tried a little halfhearted smile, which I returned with a great deal more enthusiasm.

"Great!" I said brightly. "Just avoid the Crazy Death-traps of Doom, and it's all good!" At those words Prince snorted for some reason, but when I looked curiously at him he just shook his head, so, shrugging, I turned my eyes to the platform where the Crow Master waited. "So," I ventured, "I just look where I'm going and . . ."

I didn't wait for Prince's reply, instead focusing my gaze on the platform and bringing all my will together into one single thought, which somehow, I felt, held more power behind it than just an ordinary word:

_**There.**_

Golden light exploded through me and into the open air, accompanied by a brazen tone (I decided at this point that I could safely assume that my attempt had succeeded), and when my vision cleared I was 'there'. Unfortunately so was the Crow Master, and Prince wasn't, though I was sure that he would remedy that situation as quickly as possible. In the meantime, though . . . Sighing, I drew my sword and raised it until it was in a diagonal position in front of my torso, where it could be moved quickly to protect anything vital if necessary.

The Crow Master said, "Come closer, girl, and meet—" More than a little sick of the cheesy battle cries, by Prince and otherwise, I practically launched myself at the Sand creature, cutting him off in the middle of his sentence. Shockingly, I actually succeeded in landing a glancing blow (apparently my 'surprise' technique had worked this time), but I think I did more damage to his ego than to his health: he did his 'looming' thing again and swept toward me. I managed to bring my sword up and block the powerful sweep of his blade, and luckily at that point Prince made his presence known. This time the Crow Master was sufficiently weakened by the former attacks that he could not escape, instead turning grey and beginning to dissolve as Prince split his fading body directly in half.

"Unfortunate that it had to end this way." The Sand creature's voice faded into a mere sigh as, collapsing dramatically to his knees, he exploded into a shower of Sand.

"Maybe for you," I said to the three drifting feathers in the space that he used to occupy.

Prince sheathed his primary weapon, but took the axe that he held in his left hand and slung it out horizontally through the air, where it clanged against the opposite wall and promptly disintegrated. He then turned and scooped up the huge saber that the Crow Master had wielded, sliding it into his belt. Realizing that I still had my weapon out (it was a little worse for wear after the battle), I followed suit (with the sheathing part . . . obviously I couldn't take the Crow Master's sword, since Prince already had, and it was far too unwieldy for me anyway).

The royal dusted his hands off on his breeches, apparently an unconscious habit, then straightened and searched our surroundings with sharp blue-green eyes. Following the line of his gaze, I groaned.

"Armadillos roasting in Hades eating chocolate-covered coffee beans!" I hissed. "Really? I _just _came from there." I glared at the open gateway, reachable, as I had observed before, by a wall-run from this platform, a leap to a pole, swinging from there into the gateway. A satisfied grin suddenly tugged at my lips, and a great deal of my irritation dissipated as I remembered: _Or by teleport. _

I thought: _**There,**_ and an instant later was at my destination, where I settled down to wait for Prince and glare at the crack in the wall I'd gone through last time. _If only I'd known about this ability __**then**__!_ I thought longingly, sighing at the memory of allthose ledges. I was shortly joined by the royal, who glanced curiously between me and the object of my death-glare for a moment before shrugging almost imperceptibly, apparently deciding that whatever motives I had contrived in my warped brain for the inexplicable things I did were irrelevant. He moved forward and began quickly and efficiently making his way down the ledges. I watched him thoughtfully, reflecting that he didn't talk all that much, but when he _did _talk he seemed to feel the need to make up for his usual silence by being downright verbose. . . . Well, excluding his unfortunate selection of battle cries.

Admittedly, I did feel a bit smug when, skipping the ledges entirely, I teleported directly to the bottom of the hallway, bypassing Prince once again. Even if my resentful thoughts toward him earlier when navigating the ledges hadn't been entirely genuine, it was still gratifying that I was no longer entirely helpless. I had a sword (which I could wield with all the skill and finesse of a goat placed behind the wheel of a Hummer), I had an Artifact (which I had _totally _earned . . . it wasn't completely random at all), and I was dead (sort of) already! What could possibly go wrong?

I stopped in my tracks. _No, no, I didn't really think that, _I frantically assured Fate (or oak trees) or whatever it was that liked both irony and messing with my life (bad combination). It was hard not to be superstitious when the world (oak trees, in particular) acted like it was out to get you. I was now a firm believer in everything and nothing, willing to consider that just about anything might be possible just as long as I wasn't forced to believe it.

The thoughts reminded me of Kim, who was much less introspective than I was but was always willing to provide a listening ear (or at least pretend to) when I'd had my latest revelation about the meaning of life, love, and insufferability. She drove me nuts with the way she took everything at face value; my convoluted reasoning went right over her head, and so she just nodded and smiled, pretending she understood while I pretended the same thing. She was my best friend: ever loyal, ever strange, and ever thrilled to put up with my strangeness. _Miss you,_ I thought wistfully, feeling suddenly cold.

"What's wrong, Jenny?" asked Prince, apparently concerned by the look on my face.

I blinked, wondering at what point he had appeared at my shoulder and how I hadn't noticed, and then swiveled my head to look at him, delivering a slow, ironic grin. "Well," I said musingly, "where would you like me to start?" A laugh escaped me at way his eyes widened in alarm, and I found myself resisting the urge to reach up and ruffle his hair, thus shattering his princely dignity beyond repair. "Kidding," I added lightly.

It was almost true.

When Prince still looked doubtful, I added, "Let's just put it this way: my life sucks almost as much as yours does. That's all you need to know." For good measure, I gave him a 'look': a _'you really do not want to pursue this subject'_ look. Heeding the wisdom that the look imparted, he clamped his mouth shut.

[o{o}o]

**AN: This chapter is dedicated to Sanne-chan, author of **_**Prince of Persia: Gamer Within, **_**if only because I felt a bit sad when I killed off the Crow Master . . . So, Jenny has discovered (well . . . Prince told her) the Ring's powers! At least now I don't have to insert random cracks everywhere anymore. And I know that there wasn't a lot of action in this chapter, plot-wise anyway. Patience is a virtue, my good reviewers.  
But it's one I don't possess, so REVIEW!  
. . . Please. **

**~Killer Zebra**


	8. Now a Hallway?

**READ THIS****: **_**Especially **_**if you don't normally read the Author's Notes, check out the FAQ at the end of this chapter.**

**AN: Uhhmm, hi. Sorry about the delayed update! I was in California, wakeboarding and getting really painfully sunburned. Thanks to all my reviewers! I love you guys! :D**

[o{o}o]

Jenny (narrating): _Time stopped. Literally. Or at least it slowed down a lot for everyone except Prince. He was a blur of motion, moving too fast for my eyes to focus, but I still feared that he would be too late. There was a burning, a throbbing fire spreading through my veins; I felt as though something malevolent was infiltrating my body, poisoning my flesh. And it was: the Sands.  
_**(Excerpt from Chapter 14 of **_**Not What I Had Planned)**_

[o{o}o]

_Last Chapter:  
When Prince still looked doubtful, I added, "Let's just put it this way: my life sucks almost as much as yours does. That's all you need to know." For good measure, I gave him a 'look': a 'you really do not want to pursue this subject' look. Heeding the wisdom that the look imparted, he clamped his mouth shut. _

**Chapter 7: Now a Hallway?**

I was about to teleport out of the hall, to the opening far above that I could just barely glimpse from here if I stood on my tiptoes, when I paused suddenly, wrinkling my brow in thought. _Isn't there supposed to be a Raider down here?_ I looked around me as Prince ascended the ledges, but no Sand creature suddenly materialized out of the woodwork—or, uh, stonework. I spent a moment like that, staring suspiciously around, before realization hit me like a ton of bricks:

"Oh!_ Duh!"_ I yelled, smacking my palm against my forehead—_hard_—and wincing at the impact. When Prince glanced down inquisitively from his heights, I just waved the hand that wasn't clutching my now throbbing head dismissively at him, and, though he didn't look entirely reassured, he continued upward. "Of _course_," I said, more quietly this time. I'd been there when the Raider was disposed of, after all, by everyone's favorite Guardian of the Timeline. _Sometimes I astonish myself with my own stupidity. _

Satisfied that there were no mysteries lurking about, I teleported to the opening in the top of the hall, outstripping Prince once more. There was the corridor with the fountain again, and though I was still a little wary of the water's magical effects, I went forward and drank, closing my eyes in blissful relief as every miniscule pain or discomfort disappeared and energy filled me. _Incredible,_ I breathed inwardly, moving away to make room for Prince. The sensation had amazed me all over again; I had the sneaking suspicion that no matter how many times I felt it, it would always surprise me.

As Prince bent down and scooped water from the fountain (_Saving point!_ sang my inner gamer) my thoughts wandered back to the last time I had stood in this passage. _Why _had the Dahaka been following me? Did even _he _know? He'd seemed confused enough . . . For all I knew, he'd just been bored and decided to stalk the first hapless human he encountered, which, regrettably, had been me. _No,_ I decided, shaking my head, _that couldn't have been it. He was . . . he was __**too **__confused for it to have been random. It was more like, he had to do __**something,**__ and he was just following me to figure out what. _I grinned. _Funny, he never seemed to have that problem with Prince._

Speaking of the royal, he touched my arm briefly as he passed, presumably to alert me to the fact that he was leaving. It wouldn't have been entirely unprecedented for me to be so lost in thought that I wouldn't notice his departure, so I appreciated the gesture.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" I wondered aloud as I followed him, squinting, out into the sunlight.

"I'm working it out as I go," said Prince absentmindedly, not really listening. He went straight to the turnstile in the center of the courtyard while I glowered at the cliff's rim, which brought up unpleasant memories of my first awful climb along that ledge, my survival depending on my hands' grip on the narrow ledge. When I turned back to Prince, he was just finishing pushing the turnstile in a complete circle, and the gate that we had come through slid shut while the one on the other side of the courtyard did the opposite. He turned back to me with the flame behind his eyes visible once again. "Do _you?_" he asked. It took me a moment to figure out that he was referring to my earlier question, the one I'd thought he wasn't paying attention to.

"Um . . ." I murmured pensively, not sure exactly how much I should say. He was obviously aware that I had knowledge that would be extremely useful to him, but if I told him too much it might mess with the storyline, at which point any advantage that my extra knowledge gave me would be lost. "Pass?"

Prince smiled a small smile, one that held only the faintest hint of amusement in it. One scarred eyebrow rose.

I sighed, vaguely annoyed. "This tower's not all that hard to activate, just time consuming," I admitted grudgingly. "What you're doing now is to bring up some turnstiles back in the Garden Hall, which will allow you to proceed to the next step. I'll help if you get stuck, but I'm _not_ going to be your own personal walkthrough." The announcement was accompanied with what I hoped was a determined, immovable look, because there was no way I was going to budge on this one. Changing one's fate was all well and good, but I wasn't going to interfere with all this volatile 'Timeline' business unless it was absolutely necessary. Being stalked by the Dahaka when he _wasn't _trying to kill me was quite freaky enough, thank you!

"Of course," agreed Prince, sounding a tad disappointed but not surprised at all. I looked at him suspiciously, but he was already moving through the newly opened gate, across the bridge on the other side, and up the stairs into the garden. Rolling my eyes heavenward in frustration, I ran to catch up. When I reached him, he was standing in the entrance to the garden, frowning.

I opened my mouth to ask what had prompted the look (it was different than his usual 'being-chased-by-a-gargantuan-black-demon-for-five-years-has-sucked-away-my-personality-like-a-sparkly-vampire' expression), but he preempted me, muttering half to himself, "There should have been more Sand creatures by this time . . . Why have we not been attacked?" His gaze darted about warily, as though he was expecting the Dahaka to leap out of nowhere and scream 'BOO!' (or, more likely, 'AkahaD eht epacse tonnac uoy!') at any moment.

"Relax, Prince," I said offhandedly, wisely not mentioning my own dealings with the Guardian of the Timeline. "Maybe the Empress is just saving them for later." When I grinned and patted his shoulder he turned to glare at me, as though I had done something horrid and unspeakable. He did relax—marginally—though.

We stood there for a moment, both silent, but then Prince, his expression faintly curious, stated slowly, "You do realize that you're still wearing a bandage around your head."

My hand swiftly reached up to my temple, verifying this, and with a flush of embarrassment I found the edge of the bandage and unwrapped it, then combed my fingers once through the uncovered hair (although that probably did more to muss it than to fix it). Feeling slightly guilty at the spoilage of the picturesque garden, I discarded the soiled strip of cloth on the ground, tossing out years of brainwashing (public service announcements instructing everybody not to litter) in one fatal instant.

"But of course!" I replied, my voice giving no indication that I was anything but completely earnest. "I was merely making a fashion statement, and have now reconsidered the style."

Prince looked at me, appearing deep in thought. Finally he asked, "Making a what?"

I barely managed to suppress the grin that threatened to break over my face, shaking my head, and distracted the royal by waving my hand in the direction of the switch on the pillar near the back of the garden. "Shouldn't you be off trying to break your neck or something?"

Prince looked vaguely cross at my phraseology, but headed that way nonetheless, executing a vertical wall-run up the pillar and grabbing onto the switch, pulling it slowly down as, in direct correlation, a stone block rose from the ground to his left. He dropped from the switch and sprinted for the block, but by the time he reached it, it had already returned to its original position. He didn't seem unduly discouraged, though, and merely went back and pulled the switch again. Then something peculiar happened: there was a tingling sensation in the air, everything went a bit unfocused . . . and Prince became a dark blur against the garden's backdrop, traveling with inhuman speed to climb up onto the swiftly sinking square of masonry and use its height to grab onto the steady ledge above. I blinked, and when my eyes reopened he had leaped out to a tree branch, and was moving normally again.

"Whoa," I breathed quietly, sounding a little more awed than I liked to admit. That was incredibly, insanely _cool._ I mean, I'd known that he had the ability, of course, but seeing it firsthand was an entirely different matter: this was harnessing _Time itself, _and there was no doubting that power when you witnessed it.

"Are you coming?" Prince looked down at me inquisitively.

"Uh . . ." I said, eyeing the narrow tree branch. "How about we wait until you get to somewhere solid?" My smile was dazzlingly innocent; Prince, disappointingly, only shrugged, apparently unimpressed. He stood and edged along the bough (which, fortunately, was near-perfectly level), and when he reached the end, leaped out into the open air. My mouth dropped open; I nearly had a heart attack until I realized that he had merely jumped to a horizontal pole, not to his death. Feeling foolish, I turned away, resolving not to watch anymore. _My apologies, Prince, _I thought dryly, _but I'd rather not die prematurely of heart failure. _My subconscious nudged me, reminding me that I was already dead, and I promptly ignored it.

My eyes wandering the garden in search for something to focus on that was _not_ a Persian royal with a death-wish, they were caught by . . . an archway. One that I was certain hadn't been there before, and was sending out altogether too many 'innocent' vibes not to be exactly what I thought it was.

I stomped over and stood in the doorframe, glaring into the void that the passage ended in. "_You _again," I grumbled. "First the Dahaka is stalking me, now a hallway?"

The 'hallway' somehow contrived to appear offended.

"Okay," I relented, a tad sheepish, "so you're not just a hallway, and it's not really stalking . . . I don't think." I looked suspiciously at it, and the 'innocent' vibes started again. "Stop that!" I snapped.

It stopped.

A long sigh escaped me, and I tapped my foot rhythmically as I deliberated. At length I muttered, "You're kind of weird . . . and it's even weirder that I'm talking to you, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure you're sentient . . . but I'm not really angry at you anymore. The whole thing was kind of pointless in the first place: it's not _your _fault that I'm dead." When the void seemed to perk up slightly at this, I added mulishly, "I'm still not going to drink your sparkle-water, though."

The passage gave a disappointed sigh (or . . . the hallway equivalent of a sigh, anyway, which was too mind-bogglingly bizarre for description), and I sighed along with it, suddenly feeling tired—not physically, but mentally. The truth was that this whole situation terrified me, and the only way I could retain any modicum of sanity was to pretend that things weren't as bizarre as they were. To . . . just keep on 'living', so to speak. When I had woken from the coma, I had done the same, allowing the monotony of everyday life to distract me: this was different, obviously, and what I was going through was _anything_ but 'the monotony of everyday life', but the same basic concept applied.

"Death sucks," I announced.

The 'hallway' seemed to agree.

"I mean, I don't have the faintest idea what's going on, no matter _how_ much I try to reason about dreams and such," my voice grew louder as the rant progressed until I was almost yelling, "and to top it all off, I couldn't even have been dropped into a _nice, peaceful_ dream/afterlife thing, could I? _Nooo, _I had to be stuck in a place where I'm stalked by giant black demons and have a Sand vortex for legs and could drop dead at any moment from all of the things here designed to _kill_ me!" I paused. ". . . Again! Dying is not fun, let me tell you: very painful."

The hallway started to send out 'peaceful' vibes again, but I didn't reprimand it this time: I knew that I needed to be soothed. Instead I said quietly, "Thanks." I felt worn out, but also . . . clean. _I guess I needed a good rant,_ I thought, glancing at the void at the end of the passage, which was still sending out calming and vaguely sympathetic vibes. For the first time in a while, though, I noticed that subtle, aching emptiness in my chest, which had been there ever since I woke from my coma, but I'd learned to ignore.

"It's a . . . a lost feeling," I said slowly, working it out as I spoke. The void that the passage ended in wouldn't have any idea what I was talking about, sure, but at this point I didn't really care all that much. "I don't feel like _I'm_ lost. It's more like . . . something else is; I just don't know _what."_ I smiled a little, but it was a sad smile. "Isn't that strange?"

Without saying anything further, and with an absentminded pat on the wall in thanks and farewell, I turned and left. The sun was warm as it struck my skin in dappled patterns of shadow through the trees' foliage, and, sucking in a deep breath of clear, ocean-scented air, I realized that it had been rather . . . nice, actually, to talk to the fountain-void. _It doesn't talk back, for one thing . . ._ Remembering its odd methods of communicating, my lips quirked, and I revised that thought:_ . . . not technically, anyway. It seems to just . . . listen. _Yes, that was it: it listened. More than that, it seemed to _understand,_ and _care._ Prince was an interesting companion, and I was growing fond of him (more than I should, no doubt), but there was never any doubt in my mind that he was far more concerned with his own problems than with anyone else's. _It's a very sad day when I have to resort to hallways for my daily dose of compassion,_ I reflected, feeling both put out with Prince and somewhat guilty for the dismissive way I'd referred to the 'hallway'. To be fair, the royal did have a few more issues than the average person, what with being fated to die and all . . .

Risking a peek above me, I relaxed upon confirming that Prince was nowhere in sight. All the same, though, I found myself hoping nervously that he was okay. It helped that I wasn't actually _watching_ him perform his gravity-defying stunts, but thanks to my gaming experience, I knew _exactly_ what he was doing right now; I didn't like to contemplate what could happen if he slipped up too many times and ran out of Sands. He _had_ been doing this for years, though, so I really didn't have to worry. _Really._ Honestly.

"Jenny."

I yelped and spun around (nearly tripping over my own feet in the process), reaching for my sword's hilt in a strangely automatic movement, considering how short a period of time I'd had it. "Gosh!" I exclaimed. "Prince, do you _really_ have to do that?"

Said royal, standing in archway we had first come from, just stared at me for a second, then—apparently deciding to ignore my rather accusing question—explained, "I'm finished here. We have to go back this way, if we're returning to the Garden Hall." He gestured to the archway behind him.

My hand drifted away from the sword hilt, and I briefly glanced back at the hallway leading to the magic-fountain, somehow knowing that it was invisible to Prince. "Okay," I agreed, walking in his direction without really watching where I was going. Of course, I promptly stumbled over an uneven bit of ground, although I managed to catch myself before falling flat on my face.

I didn't stop when I reached Prince, instead continuing past him down the steps and muttering, "Don't you _dare_ laugh." He didn't really seem to be in any danger of laughing, though: there was that weariness in his expression that belied his energetic movements and bright-burning eyes, and I was starting to believe that making him laugh would be an accomplishment indeed. A pang of sadness struck my heart as I entered the courtyard with the turnstile-lever and stood back to give Prince room to turn it: I remembered the way he had been in _The Sands of Time,_ and, though there were hints of that person in him now, most of him had been taken over by his desperate struggle for survival. I couldn't blame him, but . . . I did wish that I could've known him before he went through this change.

_According to his story, _my subconscious reminded me, _you did._ I dismissed the reminder: _No, _I thought, shaking my head. _He knows __**me**__ somehow, obviously, but I have never known him._

Prince finished pushing the turnstile, and the gate slid open. Still lost in thought, I followed him through, took a cursory sip from the fountain in the corridor there (although Prince, as he was uninjured, didn't bother, making my inner gamer protest at the wastage of a saving point), then utilized my ability to teleport in first getting to the bottom of the ledge-strewn hallway (where there was a new Raider stationed, but I left him for Prince to deal with), then to the top on the other side. All I had to do was to wait for Prince to catch up.

[o{o}o]

**AN: And the magic-fountain is… sentient? I didn't plan that. Really. It just happened. Hey, does anyone know if the magic-fountain actually has an official **_**name?**_** Cause I keep on calling it a magic-fountain, which is what it is, but it sounds kind of silly… Anyway, review please!**

**~Killer Zebra**

**FAQ:**

**_Q: Is Prince ever going to get himself a name?_**  
**A: That's a definite 'no'. For one thing, it would just be awkward (for me at least): Prince is Prince. *shrug* More importantly, though, it's already been done. _Three times. _In _Dark Dreams,_ in _Warrior's Angel,_ and in _Gamer Within._ If I tried the same thing, I'd just be beating a dead horse.**

**_Q: Will Lucan or Farah show up any time soon?_**  
**A: Well, obviously if you're asking this question you haven't been reading my Author's Notes, so I don't have a lot of confidence that you'll read this one either, but I'll repeat myself anyway: Lucan and Farah will not be in this story, but they'll _definitely _be in the next one. **

**_Q: Is Jenny going to start up a romance with Prince or the Dahaka?_**  
**A: No. Just . . . No.**

**_Q: What's with the Dahaka's backwards-speech?  
_A: Ah, well, perhaps you've never noticed, but in the game when the Dahaka says something and Prince uses the Amulet to turn back Time, you can actually understand what the Dahaka is saying as it goes backwards! Thus, the backwards-speech. **

**_Q: WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?  
_As mentioned in Question #2, you obviously haven't been reading my Author's Notes. I have been trying to clear this up, though . . .**  
**Now, this story follows an _alternate _ending to _Not What I Had Planned._ In this alternate ending, when Prince turned back Time, he went all the way back to a time before Jenny left her home world. Thus, rather than showing up in someplace Persiaey (*wink*), she suffered the full consequences of her car crash—a coma, and five years in a hospital bed. However (and this seems to be a common point of confusion), the coma isn't what caused her to lose her memories: as Jenny predicted (although in the original ending she was wrong), when Prince turned Time back everyone lost their memories of what had happened except for him. Jenny remembers nothing, and neither do Lucan or Farah.**  
**If you have any suggestions as to how to clarify that without some long, complicated AN (see above), _please_ review or PM! I have explained this _way _too many times.**


	9. Uh, birds

**AN: My future brother-in-law is staying at my house for the summer. It is . . . disconcerting. But hey, I'll live. Somehow. Joking! He's cool. It's just weird.  
*cough* Onto more **_**relevant **_**matters . . . **

**50 reviews! . . . Or, almost. If I'd waited for seven reviews it would have been fifty, but I posted early for two reasons:  
1) Because I've been taking a long time between updates and I wanted to post promptly for once, and  
2) Because the story is moving **_**so incredibly slow **_**right now that I decided that I had to post quicker to make up for it. **

**Thanks so much for reading, thanks **_**especially **_**if you reviewed, and enjoy the chapter!**

[o{o}o]

Jenny (narrating): _It was at that point that I realized that the Prince and Farah weren't just characters to me anymore, either of a computer game or of my imagination: they were my friends.  
_**(Excerpt from Chapter 5 of **_**Not What I Had Planned)**_

[o{o}o]

_Last Chapter:_ _Still lost in thought, I followed Prince through the gate, took a cursory sip from the fountain in the corridor there, then utilized my ability to teleport in first getting to the bottom of the ledge-strewn hallway, then to the top on the other side. All I had to do was to wait for Prince to catch up._

**Chapter 8: Uh . . . Birds.**

"Where do they even _come _from?" I asked rhetorically, exasperated. We were back in the Garden Hall, and somewhere along the line it must've been restocked with Sand creatures, because there was a new batch waiting for us when we returned.

"Now you will serve the Empress!" one screeched as they ran towards us, swords waving. Up to this point I'd been avoiding using the sword that hung at my hip unless it was absolutely necessary to defend myself, but I knew I'd have to experiment with the weapon eventually (unless I wanted to stay completely dependent on Prince for protection), and this seemed as good a time as ever to start. I grasped the hilt and drew it out, rather awkwardly; once I held it, though, its weight seemed to balance naturally in my hand. Prince sent me a sidelong glance at the movement, but his expression, far from being surprised, seemed . . . oddly reflective; I wouldn't have thought that such a simple thing would inspire much thought. As the Raiders neared, they slowed and separated, forming a semi-circle around us.

Deciding to throw in my two bits, I responded innocently to the Raider who had spoken earlier, "The Empress, eh? She _wants_ you dead? _That's _weird." Perhaps that hadn't been the best idea: roaring with rage, he charged at me.

I dodged to the side and raised my sword so that his blow skittered off the blade, noting in some small, unoccupied portion of my brain that Prince was engaging two of the other Sand creatures, while the last one merely hovered around the edges, waiting for an opening. Fear and excitement thrilled through me as the one I was fighting, recovered, raised his sword again. I'd never considered myself a particularly _violent _person, but the adrenaline was pumping through my veins, my opponent was before me, and my natural (and not entirely unpleasant) instinct was to fight.

"This is going to hurt," snarled Prince to the creature he was currently engaging.

I took a jab at my Raider's stomach and discovered that the curved scimitar blade was not well-suited for stabbing at all, but had instead been created for slicing and hacking; the blow was weak, and the wound it left little more than a scratch. "How nice of you to warn him," I threw mockingly to Prince, feeling a nervous grin pull at the corners of my lips. A gasp of pain escaped me when, unexpectedly, my dodge of the Raider's next swipe didn't go quite far enough; a line of fire blazed along the outer side of my left hip, then faded into the pulsing heat of blood flowing down my side.

"Armadillos!" I expostulated as I stumbled back, finally getting a bit angry. That _hurt. _

With the force of the anger behind it, my sword whipped up so quickly that the Raider didn't have time to move his weapon from where it protected his torso to block my strike at his head. I didn't try anything fancy, just put all of the force of my body into one blow; the sword's edge bit in right above the Raider's ear, and there was the sickening sound of crunching bone as his skull gave way, imploding. He toppled to the ground instantly, disintegrating into Sand, but the feel of flesh and blood and bone beneath my sword's edge wasn't one that I was going to forget anytime soon. I sucked in a deep breath against the suspicious churning of my stomach, staring, unsettled, down at the place where the Raider had been.

Prince was dealing with the last Sand creature, so it was with relief that, dragging my battered weapon along the ground behind me, I limped to the pool of water that lay a few feet away, wincing each time I used the muscles in my injured hip. I dropped the sword there rather than sheathing it, then knelt down to take a drink straight from the pool, supporting myself with one hand and holding my hair away from my face with the other. The sensation was as incredible as ever, running through my bones like liquid warmth and spreading energy and well-being as it went. Sometimes I suspected that it changed every time, staying just similar enough that I would be fooled into thinking that it was the same.

_I just killed a man._ It was such a foreign concept that I was still trying to wrap my mind around it: someone had tried to kill me, and I had killed him instead. One moment he had been shouting lame and ineffectual insults, the next there was blood and Sand and that awful _noise . . . _I shuddered away from the thought, standing and wrapping my arms around my chest.

_Gross._

The thought was so unexpectedly _true_ that it startled a quiet laugh out of me: it _had_ been gross. Sickening, really. Waking from my haze of self-revulsion, I shook my head firmly.

_No,_ I told myself adamantly. _You did __**not **__kill a man, you killed a monster. Even if he hadn't been a Sand creature, he still had no qualms about trying to slaughter two people innocent of wrongdoing. You were defending yourself and your friend: never feel guilty for that._

It wasn't until much later that I realized that during that entire justification, there had been no, _'Besides: he didn't really exist in the first place.'_

Prince had no visible wounds, but as I turned toward the Garden Hall he passed me to lean down and sip from the pool, so he either was hurt somewhere I couldn't see or he needed his energy replenished. "You forgot your sword," he remarked when he'd finished.

I shrugged. "Not really. It was just getting a little worn." As though to punctuate the statement, I trotted over to where the Sand creatures had perished and scooped up one of the now ownerless swords there, feeling a pang of sadness at the wastage of life, but no guilt as I did so. I'd done what was done, and would make the same choice again if I had to. "Let's go."

The Garden Hall seemed almost the same as ever—there was the same twittering of birds (no crows inserting their cacophony into that pleasantly harmonious background noise, interestingly enough), the same reserved, wild-seeming but in actuality well-tended foliage, and the same general layout—but there was one marked difference: spaced evenly throughout the landscape were four turn-levers, their braziers already burning. _Did the Sand creatures light them, or are they somehow magicked to burn all the time, even while still underground? _I wondered idly, remembering the cutscene from the game of their rising from their places under the Garden Hall turf. Prince went to experiment with pushing and pulling at the levers; I hadn't told him their purpose, but it was fairly easy to guess, as the running water whose course they manipulated was visible through continuous metal grates in the flooring. It didn't take him long at all to get all of the streams flowing through all of the appropriate channels (I trailed behind him most of the time, poking at odd-looking plants and feeling generally useless), and a scraping noise from the large passage across from the one from which we had first entered the Garden Hall alerted us both to the fact that the hydropower had done its work.

"What next?" inquired Prince, heading in that direction. I entertained myself by kicking at the dirt as I walked, just happy that we were finally getting out of here.

"Water," I pronounced, cheerfully ambiguous. "Lots and lots of water."

He sent me a glance of mild irritation, but seemed more resigned than anything else. We entered the section of the Hall that the noise had come from, and, lo and behold, the gate that I had previously observed there, firmly shut, was now unobstructed; the cause of this could be deduced by the two streams of water running through some sort of triggering mechanism on either side of it, which also hadn't been there before. Prince, avoiding the elegantly carved, slender columns that ran lengthwise along the center of the hall, which supported another ivy-draped beam, made his way toward the opened gate. He passed through at a fast walk, although I had to speed up to a jog occasionally to keep pace with his longer stride. We turned a corner, and the end of the passage (along with two Raiders and a drop-off that ended only in darkness) could be seen. There were ledges above the chasm, progressing steadily upward (as the shaft went both ways) but there was the small matter of a couple of the Empress' Sand creatures to deal with before Prince and I could head up that way . . .

Prince approached the Raiders from behind, moving so silently that I couldn't even catch the sound of the faintest whisper of cloth, though I strained my ears in vain. He reached around one of them and pinned his arms, ripping his sword across the stomach before the creature could make a sound. The Raider shouted in surprise as Prince released him, already taking on the gray-brown pallor of a Sand creature near their demise.

"_He's_ the one the Empress wants dead!" the other announced, alerted to our presence by his companion's shout.

"Really," I said in a deadpan voice, drawing my fresh sword. It seemed more or less identical to the last one. "Is there another human guy running around here trying to activate towers or something?" I was more or less certain that the Sandwraith didn't count as 'human', even if he _was_ an alternate version of the Prince.

The royal vaulted over the Sand creature he was fighting, and one more swipe finished him off. He and I moved in sync toward the second creature, and I discovered that I was a lot more effective at inflicting damage on my enemies when they were distracted by the constantly-moving variable that was Prince, and so didn't have a lot of attention to spare for secondary little me. With Prince being his usual lethal self, and me darting in at odd moments to strike a blow, the Raider was dealt with quickly. Prince's Amulet had absorbed the Sand from his first kill, so he stepped courteously back to allow me this one. I reached out my hand and let the Ring take the Sand into itself, wondering why there was seemingly no way to keep track of how many Sands my Ring had. I couldn't see or sense it; it could've been unlimited or on the verge of becoming completely drained, and I would never have known.

"How come you have all these awesome skills, anyway?" I asked, disgruntled, as Prince did a vertical wall-run up to the first ledge. Seeing that our destination was invisible from where I stood, I frowned a bit and instead teleported to a ledge above and across from Prince; I'd have to make my way up in stages.

It had been a rhetorical question, but he answered, "Practice," edging along the ledge by his hands. "One learns quickly, when one's life is at stake if one doesn't."

I went silent at that, subdued. Prince always made sure, one way or another, that I could never forget the true purpose of his (ours now, I supposed) quest. Turning my gaze to the next ledge, I thought: _**There,**_ and continued back and forth until solid ground was visible, at which point I teleported there and was promptly attacked by two birds, heretofore unseen.

"Ack!" I squeaked, hurriedly beating them away with my hands. The skin above my left eyebrow was scored and bleeding where a sharp beak had just barely missed my eye. I ducked away and pulled my sword out, slashing randomly through the air in hopes that I would hit something. Sure enough, there was a sort of '_SCREECHPOOF!' _sound as one bird burst into a cloud of feathers, and my admittedly dubious tactics shortly took out the other as well. I found myself a tad relieved that Prince, timing immaculate as always, missed witnessing the indignity, though it was by mere moments.

"What was that noise?" he questioned, tugging himself up onto the floor.

"Uh . . ." I said. "Birds. They're dead."

Nothing more was spoken on the subject.

This time I trotted ahead, aware that there were no death-traps waiting down this corridor. At least . . . there weren't if I hadn't just somehow jinxed myself into instant death-by-portal-room by thinking that. I grinned when I rounded the corner and spotted the curtain of water that heralded a portal-room, nervous, but also excited: I was going to travel to the _future!_ . . . Okay, the present, and even that was pretty far into the past by my standards, but still! My hand, seemingly of its own volition, nervously twisted the Ring about its finger as I stepped forward, bowing my head to keep my eyes out of the water, and passed through the threshold.

"_COLD!"_ I yelped, suddenly in a hurry as I shot out of the water and stumbled to a stop directly beyond, shuddering and rubbing my arms in a useless attempt to warm myself. Chilled drops of water trickled down my back in rivulets from my (thankfully) only partly soaked hair. Prince, coming through behind me, seemed untroubled by the waterfall's temperature. "Aren't you _cold?"_ I queried plaintively, stopping my shivering long enough to stare at him in envious disbelief.

"It is cold," Prince agreed, his tone dismissive, "but hardly enough to render one incapable of controlling one's own body." He directed a disapproving look at my trembling limbs as he said it, clearly having a low opinion of anyone who was so easily overcome by a mere momentary discomfort. This opinion was justified, I supposed, considering what he must've gone through in prior years, needing to stay in absolute control through any circumstances in order to survive.

With a forcible effort of will, I stopped my body's shaking, concentrating on the heat in my core rather than the chill of the air against my damp skin. It was a kind of gesture of respect to Prince, as well as just born out of the desire to prove him wrong. I _could _do what was needed when it was needed; I just didn't think that being a stick-in-the-mud the rest of the time was part of the 'capable' job description.

"Okay, whatever," I muttered rebelliously, glancing around the familiar chamber. We were standing between two fountains. There was a short hallway in front of us, where four protruding stone pillars, two on each side, held pressure-plates. Pressed in the correct order, these would release the streams of Sand that would flow through a pattern of grooves on the floor, which eventually merged into one deeper groove, which extended out to the round platform at the end of the portal-chamber and formed a swirling pattern. When the Sand flowed fully through this design, it triggered a Time-warp vortex in the center of the platform. Surrounding this platform was a deep ravine, the other side of which contained tall columns, draped between with heavy scarlet curtains. I couldn't decipher their material from this distance, but they were undoubtedly of fine craftsmanship. The ceiling, though, was provided by an open sky, whose craftsmanship was far finer than anything I'd seen in the fortress. I sent a smile upwards, because, although everything else was different, the sky looked as it always had; it even had the customary dense covering of gray clouds. The effect, probably meant to be dismal, was instead comfortingly familiar to me.

"You know what this place is?" Prince phrased it as a question, but it was really a statement; I answered anyway.

"Yeah," I said, my voice still a little wistful as I looked at the sky. "You should probably get started on activating that Time-warp vortex, speaking of which." I finally looked at him; he was watching me, appearing almost as wistful as I had just then, when I was gazing at the sky. I almost asked why—but something about his expression deterred me. It was a long moment that we stood there, staring at each other, but eventually Prince stirred from his half-trance, turning away from me and doing as I had suggested: running up to the pressure-plates, one by one, until he had worked out the order in which they needed to be set off. I stepped to the side, for some reason discomfited, when Sand started flowing through the furrows beneath my feet. The stream of Sand thickened and lengthened, moving steadily along the swirling pattern on the platform until, upon reaching the center, it took to the air, forming a wild, turbulent vortex of Sand.

With a beckoning glance, Prince stepped in, rising into the air and taking on a limp, enthralled pose before disintegrating into the vortex.

I took a deep breath of clean, utterly Sand-less air. "Here goes probable suicide," I said to the world at large. Shutting my eyes tight, I followed Prince's example and entered the churning confines of the Time-warp vortex.

[o{o}o]

**AN: Okaaaay, this whole 'Garden Tower' dealio is taking a lot longer than I'd expected. I keep on thinking, **_**Yes, this is the chapter where things will pick up—**_** and then I get to the end of the chapter, and I still haven't gotten to the place I meant to. My problem is that I absolutely **_**hate**_** summarizing: it feels like cheating. So, I keep on meaning to write something like, "and then Prince and Jenny went through the Garden Hall and got on to the next part of the story," and instead, this one-sentence summary turns into three chapters of detailed, semi-entertaining nonsense. So, I have to ask you to bear with me. The plot **_**will**_** pick up; you just need to be patient. In the meanwhile, though, enjoy your P&J bonding time. (FRIENDSHIP ONLY, Kiriona. Not to name any names, or anything.) ;D REVIEW! **

**~Killer Zebra**

**P.S. 'B', unfortunately, is not present to complete the triangle. **


	10. Fateless

**AN: Hey, so you know how I was talking about summarizing? I . . . tried that in this chapter. I hated it with all of my considerable might . . . (*flexes hate-muscles*)  
OPOD: O.o  
. . . but I tried. So, this chapter will probably suck, but at least things will hurry up a bit.**

[o{o}o]

Jenny (narrating): _A word to the wise: don't ever try to outrun someone —or some__**thing**__— that is almost three feet taller than you. Not only is it basically futile, especially when that someone —or some__**thing**__— can teleport, but it's quite demeaning. For instance: when you are taking four strides to one of his/hers/its, it is quite easy to trip over your own feet and go crashing into the person in front of you, sending you both tumbling down a very long set of steps. Needless to say, the resulting bruises don't help you run any faster._  
**(Excerpt from Chapter 11 of **_**Not What I Had Planned)**_

[o{o}o]

_Last Chapter:_ _I took a deep breath of clean, utterly Sand-less air. "Here goes probable suicide," I said to the world at large. Shutting my eyes tight, I followed Prince's example and entered the churning confines of the time-warp vortex._

**Chapter 9: Fateless**

The Sand was harsh, whipping against my skin, but after a moment it stopped trying to flay the hide from my body, instead moving through and around it, disassembling my particles into the stormy ocean that was Time, and reforming them in another age entirely. I was aware of this only on the deepest levels: most of me was occupied with a sort of warm, weightless feeling, which erased all conscious thought for the duration of the passage. When I finally came back to myself it was to the sensation of abrasive, scouring Sand again, and, still sluggish, I staggered out of the vortex.

Prince was there, watching; waiting for me. I didn't think it was completely due to my Sand-addled wits that I saw him breathe a sigh of relief when I emerged. _So he does care,_ I thought, not entirely surprised but pleased all the same. It was true that he was awfully absorbed in his own quest, but he did care, and . . . it felt nice, knowing that I wasn't the only one who'd be a bit upset if I spontaneously combusted.

"The present sure is . . . erm . . . poorly maintained," I observed carefully, reevaluating the environment that had appeared so very plush and luxurious before. The rich red curtains were gone entirely, and the crumbling stone remnants of once impressively grand structures were now moss-covered and darkened with age. "Wow," I said, more quietly. Everything was the same, but . . . different. It was profoundly disconcerting.

"It's been a long time," was Prince's murmured response. He turned from me and passed through the curtain of water, and, grimacing with distaste, I followed as quickly as possible (to minimize the time I spent under the icy waterfall). All the same, it was only with an effort that I held in the exclamation that threatened to escape me at the shock of the cold on my skin. I clamped my mouth shut, though, trudging behind Prince in silent, dripping misery. It wasn't even necessary for me to fight the two Raiders waiting in the corridor beyond the portal-room: Prince, finally making use of the Crow Master's sword, came up silently from behind and struck them down before they even had time to cry out (the saber could dispose of all but the hardiest of Sand creatures with just one blow).

Our path from then on was nearly identical to the one we had taken here, with the exception of the overgrown vines and moss that covered nearly every available surface and a few crumbled ledges and bits of flooring. When I teleported my way in stages down the shaft, I noted the two Raiders waiting at the bottom and decided to remain where I was until Prince (and his handy-dandy Crow-saber) was there to deal with them. Prince reached and moved past me shortly, and when he dropped to the ground I teleported to join him. Unfortunately, the Raiders were forewarned of our presence by the inevitable brassy sound that accompanied my ability. _Drat and armadillos, _I thought with chagrin, sending Prince a sheepish glance and drawing my sword. _I forgot about that._

Fortunately, the royal dealt with these as quickly and efficiently as he had the two previous, blocking their blows with ease and striking back with deadly force once there was an opening. Feeling redundant, I put my sword away again.

Prince headed into the Garden Hall, observing as he took in the changes, "It seems the vegetation has taken its toll on this part of the tower . . . it's completely overgrown." I almost protested, seeing him obliviously pass by the fallen chunk of debris whose height he would need to reach the next part of his journey: the beam atop the slender but strong pillars that I had noted earlier. But I had decided not to interfere (much), and a little mild frustration wasn't _nearly_ enough to make me reverse that decision. So I was silent as we fought (and defeated, of course, though afterwards I needed a drink from one of the numerous pools of water that pervaded the Hall) the four Raiders that awaited us in the Garden Hall, finishing off the Crow Master's sword for Prince. He then wandered about, with me close behind, searching in a grid pattern and poking into nooks and crannies that looked promising. There was a point, though, when his methodical searching gave way to aimless stomping around, glaring at random objects. (I knew the feeling: when I'd tried all of the probable avenues and most of the improbable ones, and I was _still_ stuck, I was probably wearing just that expression as I glared at the computer screen.) Finally he just stopped dead in his tracks.

He looked at me; I looked at him. This went on for some time.

At length I threw up my hands, making a small growl of frustration and dropping my eyes to glower at the soil beneath my feet. "Alright, alright," I grumbled, peeved. My arm jerked up sharply to point in the direction we had come from, though I never glanced away from the ground. "That way; you're heading up."

When at last I looked up at Prince, though, he was smiling with satisfaction, and suddenly I didn't mind so much anymore that he'd gotten the best of me. He backtracked to where I had directed him and promptly discovered the correct route, climbing up onto the stone block and running up the wall, then using his legs to launch himself away from the wall and catch onto the narrow beam that struck through the center of the hall. Hurriedly, I looked away; just _watching _him sway, his arms outstretched to help him maintain balance, as he edged along was enough to make me feel vertigo. The strange thing was that I was rarely very disturbed when _I _was the one at lofty heights, not unless I was truly in danger of falling. Maybe it was only that I trusted myself not to fall, while I hadn't yet reached that point with Prince.

I followed his route as he leapt from beam to beam, walking beneath him and glancing up occasionally to mark his position. I hesitated when one of these glances revealed that he had moved out of sight, then shrugged, backing up until I could view the terrace I had last observed him on (battling some Sand creatures), and, fixing my gaze there, thought, _**There.**_ When the light-blindness cleared from my vision, I was positioned in the exact place I had been looking at merely moments before; I spared a moment to be inordinately grateful for this talent, which allowed me to perform such incredible feats. It was all too easy to grow used to things, and take them for granted, but every now and then it would strike me all over again how incredibly _weird_ my situation and everything that came with it was. And, though my thoughts automatically shied away from contemplating the issue . . . it was starting to grow difficult to believe that all of this was nothing but a dream.

I swept my gaze over the Garden Hall. Sure enough, from my newly elevated position I could now see the royal, around a corner from where I had been standing before, and sidling along the top of an almost perfectly level tree bough that had wrestled its way through the wall-stones from outside. I decided against calling out to him, afraid that it might startle him into losing his balance, and instead waited several long moments as he leaped from the branch to a ledge to his left, then lowered himself to another limb, along which he moved until he could reach the decidedly well-worn tablet that the funny-headdress-man still held (his headdress looked even weirder when it was covered with the craters and various imperfections it had collected over the years). I recognized this portion of the Hall, now: the jagged opening that was Prince's goal was one that I had already been through twice, both times in the past. _We're going to the gardens again, then,_ I reasoned. This section of the tower was a little hazy in my memory, mainly because I'd spent the majority of the time playing it on autopilot. Most of this section was acrobatics; there weren't many traps or battles, and those few weren't very challenging, and so had required very little of my attention. _Although . . . I bet if I had to fight those 'unchallenging' battles __**now**__ I would give them all my consideration._ I grinned a little at the thought: I'd discovered the hard way that 'routine' battles were never really routine when there was actual danger involved. Not for me, anyway.

Prince jumped up and pulled himself from the 'tablet' onto another tree bough, which he edged cautiously along until it ended beneath the gateway, at which point he pulled himself up into the opening and vanished from sight. Blinking with surprise upon realizing how long I had remained in one place, watching him, I focused on the 'tablet' that he'd just left, and promptly teleported there. Then I paused, biting my lip to hide a smile, although the subterfuge really wasn't necessary as I had no audience. It had occurred to me that I'd been following Prince for quite a while, and he was still (as far as I could tell) completely oblivious to my presence. _How long could I keep this up?_ I wondered, eyeing the opening he'd gone through speculatively. A small, mischievous smirk curved my lips, matching the silent laughter that bubbled in my chest. It'd been too long since I'd laughed. _Might as well find out._

I waited several minutes (until I was fairly certain that Prince would be both out of sight and out of hearing distance) before teleporting to the gate opening, to the ledges below it, across the hall, then to the corresponding opening there. A considerably more dilapidated courtyard than I had last seen greeted my eyes, completely void of turnstiles, but it still took a moment for me to register that something was wrong; I did a double take.

There was no gate. Where my lovely non-ledge gateway should have been, there was only an unreasonably massive avalanche of rubble. _Oh. Well. This should be . . . fun._

It was actually easier than I had expected it to be. I climbed along ledge after ledge, teleporting occasionally when I had a visual, but I never came even close to losing my balance. Eventually the nervous fluttering in the pit of my stomach eased, and I began to enjoy the fact that I _could_ do this, _could _climb, feeling for toeholds with my nonexistent feet, instead of being confined to a wheelchair. It wasn't the real thing, but it sure as heck felt like it. I traveled like this for a while until I reached the Garden, and there retrieved a new sword from a weapons rack. The weapon I'd been using was hardly worn, but I didn't want to take any chances.

After the Garden Hall, though, the terrain was a little different, more filled with trees and wall-runs than beams and ledges. As a result, rather than following Prince's route directly (I never saw him, as I made sure to move at a moderated pace so that he would stay well ahead, but, combined with the memories I had of _Warrior Within,_ my powers of observation made it relatively easy to work out where he had gone), I had to improvise a bit (meaning that, instead of purposely sticking to Prince's roundabout course (A.K.A. "the slow way"), I was now being a bit more direct, and dawdling a smidgeon longer in between teleports to use up the extra time).

When I teleported from a grassy terrace to a blocky, rectangular stone archway, I found myself rather relieved to find a fountain (across a short gap) in the corridor there, despite the fact that I wasn't tired in the slightest. I had been starting to feel as though I would go mad if there weren't some sort of break in the monotony of teleport after teleport.

Then I went through the next archway.

_Be careful what you wish for? _I wondered half-coherently, staring in speechless disbelief at the bevy of traps that stood between me and the next solid footing. This was the last straw: there was _definitely _an oak-tree spirit (nymph, dryad, whatever) with an evil sense of humor shadowing my every move and monitoring my thoughts for anything it could take advantage of. It had spotted my wish for non-monotonous-ness and snatched up the opportunity with a high-pitched goblin giggle of wicked glee, then proceeded to somehow producing the traps that now lay before me out of thin air. I looked around and above me suspiciously, as though the poltergeist would somehow appear out of thin air.

_But hey, this can't be so hard! I just have to get my timing right. . . . Easy,_ I thought optimistically, not believing a word of it. After watching the two crushing-slabs and multiple horizontal spinning spike-poles for a while, I decided that it would be best to do it all in one teleport, rather than in stages. _That way I have less opportunity to mess up._

I observed and recorded for a long time, practically memorizing the patterns, until I had the exact right moment to go fixed firmly in the front of my mind, in time with the sound of the traps. _ZzzzZBOOMZzzzZBOOM. _I listened: _ZzzzZBOOMZzzzZBOOMZzzz— _

_**There.**_

I teleported; miraculously, upon reaching the other side, I was unscathed. Quite of their own volition, my hands patted over my hair and down my sides, as though confirming that I was, after all, not chopped into infinitesimal bits by the Spinning Scythes of Doom.

Satisfied that I hadn't died again, I left the octagonal room (my teleporting destination) through a doorway to my right, leaning against the frame and peering out and around to get some idea of where I would be going next. I glanced around the crumbling, widespread hall until I caught sight of my next goal (an open gateway, on the same side as the door I stood in now, but above and further left), then took the correct steps (or teleports, I suppose) to reach it, first teleporting to a ledge across the hall, then, now having a visual, through the open gateway.

The room I stood in now was a straightforward one, so I didn't bother to teleport. I just walked across the floor and up some crudely formed steps until I stood in the opening of the tall, imposing doorframe on the far side.

A curious sight met my eyes. There was a vast amount of open space before me, filled only with sporadic and chaotically placed trees, blocks, and beams, the bizarre-looking remainder of whatever structure had once stood here. But this only held my attention for a moment:

"**AkahaD eht epacse tonnac uoy!"** the Dahaka roared, tossing aside the limp black thing that he held (I believe it was the Crow Master). His gaze was fixed on something to my left, and I had the niggling suspicion that it wasn't Oprah Winfrey. _[__"You cannot escape the Dahaka!"]_

I followed the line of his vision in time to see Prince stagger to his feet from where he had been catapulted from the Dahaka's blow; the frantic, fearful flame of desperation that usually smoldered, barely tamed, behind his eyes had burst into a raging inferno. He fled like his life depended on it (most likely because it did), running across the wall nearest him to get to a ladder, then swiftly sliding down it and leaping out to swing across two poles. Finally reaching solid ground, he was still moving so quickly that my eyes could barely focus on his running figure; yet he never missed a beat (this may have had something to do with the fact that he could go back in time and fix things if he ever did).

Then my thoughts caught up with me, and I realized that I was standing there, calmly observing a certain demonic acquaintance of mine chase down the only friend I had in this world (not to be confused with the _other_ world), with every intention of killing him.

_**There, **_I thought forcefully, teleporting to directly beside Prince (actually, I had to guesstimate and go a few feet in front of him, so that by the time I actually got there it would be next to him).

Prince was so horrified to see me that he actually slowed down a little. Not for long, though; he roughly seized my arm, dragging me along with him. The sudden change in pace jerked my shoulder painfully, and I cried out in protest.

"RUN, JENNY!" Prince shouted. I realized with a shock that my delay, even as short as it had been, had given the Dahaka a great advantage; he was closing fast.

I sprinted alongside Prince, but yelled right back: "Let _go_ of me, you great lummox! Just keep running, I'll be fine!"

Prince sent me a panicked glance, and I realized with warmth that his fear wasn't all for himself. "I'm not leaving you!" he insisted. But I couldn't run as quickly as he could, and both of us knew it; his gaze was switching back and forth from the path ahead of us to our pursuer so quickly that it was making me dizzy.

"_Trust_ me," I said firmly, almost as though I could make him believe me by sheer force of will.

There wasn't really any time for argument, or even for a deep, searching moment. The royal's decision was made in a split instant, when we came to a gap: with one last _'I really hope you know what you're doing'_ glance, he released my arm, running along the wall to the other side . . . and the Dahaka reached me.

I turned around, arms akimbo. "_What_ do you think you are doing?" I questioned rhetorically, my annoyance clear in my tone.

Prince, still fleeing as quickly as was humanly possible, almost stopped dead in his tracks at the words and tone, but then (apparently remembering the situation) continued on, skidding around a corner and out of sight. The Dahaka, though, halted abruptly just before colliding with me (which probably would have resulted in a Jenny-pancake and an unfazed Dahaka, but he stopped anyway, much to my relief).

"**SseletaF, EVOM!" **he roared with ear-shattering volume, his white-eyed glare insurmountably menacing. _[__"MOVE, Fateless!"]_

"Um . . ." I said. "You know you could just go around me." I paused, realizing something. "Hey, I almost understood that!"

Ignoring the latter part of my words, the Dahaka unfortunately heeded the first, moving around and past me with earthshaking, distance-eating strides.

"_Armadillos,"_ I muttered under my breath, teleporting so that I was in front of him again. "You _know _that he _is _going to escape his fate, in a roundabout sort of manner anyway, so why do you keep chasing after him? Is this really necessary?"

"**Sey," **the Dahaka answered shortly, this time teleporting beyond me. I was fairly certain that the Prince was safely away by now, but I gave chase anyway. _[__"Yes."]_

"Oh, come on! Just because you're the Guardian of the Timeline doesn't mean that you don't have a choice about anything!" (_**There,**_down a long shaft, completely skipping the ladders) "Can't you give a guy a break now and then? Why not just go up to the Gods or whoever it is you work for and say," (_**There**_), " 'YOU CAN'T FIRE ME, I QUIT!' . . . You know, except in Backwardsahaka?"

I was panting at the pace, despite the fact that I had been using my ability frequently, and so I sighed with relief when, coming around a bend, we finally caught sight of Prince just as he launched himself through the curtain of water that led to the portal-room (my relief _may_ also have had a _tiny_ bit to do with the fact that he was now guaranteed safety, at least for the time being).

The Dahaka had the opposite reaction: he howled, the sound wild with unsatisfied rage. **"Etaf ruoy epacse tonnac uoy,"** he growled, glaring through the waterfall at the panting royal. Those words, at least, I knew the meaning of: _You cannot escape your fate. _He crouched slightly, as though preparing to leap away, but then he paused, turning glowing white eyes to me. For the thousandth time, I wished that he had a face that could be read.

"**Gnihton od nac I," **he rumbled. _[__"I can do nothing."]_

_There with the rumbling again,_ I thought exasperatedly. Unlike his face, though, the Dahaka's voice _could_ be read, and something about it impressed upon me that this was important.

"**SseletaF, gnihton od nac I," **he said again, insistent._ [__"I can do nothing, Fateless."]_

Somehow, I understood. "You really _don't_ have a choice, do you?" I questioned, my voice sounding as stunned as I felt at the realization.

The Guardian of the Timeline didn't reply, but there was something of satisfaction in his posture as he bent his knees, raised his face to the sky, and launched himself upwards, vanishing in a cloud of thick black smoke.

Blinking (whether still from shock or because of the smoke I wasn't sure), I glanced around for something else to focus on; I found it in the form of Prince, staring at me through the water's curtain with an astonished expression that surely mirrored mine.

_Oh, drat and armadillos. This is going to take some explaining._

[o{o}o]

**AN: So, Jenny has a new nickname! First Freckles, now Fateless. Um . . . I don't know about you guys, but when **_**I **_**was playing the game I always thought that the Dahaka was kind of dumb—I mean, half the time he's just standing there waiting for Prince to get away so that he can teleport again to catch up. In this story, though, I'm attributing that to something other than a vast amount of stupidity: reluctance. He knows his duty, but that doesn't mean he has to like it.  
Um . . . I'm a little concerned now that this chapter may have been a bit anticlimactic, after all of that "be patient" crap I was spewing at you. Please leave feedback and let me know! I always love to hear your impressions of a chapter. :)**

**~Killer Zebra**


	11. Remember What Was Lost

**AN: Hey guys! Long time no, erm, update. Thanks bunches to those who reviewed, and I hope you all enjoy this chapter!**

[o{o}o]

Jenny (to Prince & co.):_ "I thought I was going crazy, that this was all some sort of dream or hallucination. You would think the same thing if you suddenly found yourself living out one of your myths or legends, although you eventually managed to convince me that you weren't figments of my imagination . . ."_  
**(Excerpt from Chapter 16 of **_**Not What I Had Planned.)**_

[o{o}o]

_Last Chapter: __**Oh, drat and armadillos. This is going to take some explaining.**_

**Chapter 10: Remember What Was Lost **

There was a long, awkward silence, where Prince continued staring at me and I shifted uncomfortably under his incredulous gaze.

After a time he asked, "What exactly was that?" He didn't really sound upset . . . just completely and utterly flabbergasted at the concept of anyone having even a half-civil conversation with the _Dahaka,_ the demonic, ebony-skinned Guardian of the Timeline who'd been trying to kill him for the last five years.

"Well . . ." I began tentatively, but then drifted off into silence, unsure of how to proceed. What _was_ 'that', exactly? I certainly wasn't the Dahaka's ally, nor his friend, and 'acquaintance' wasn't right either. Thinking over it now, I could hardly believe that I'd actually had the guts (or the insanity . . . whichever) to confront him when he was chasing Prince. I knew that I wasn't on his Fated-to-die list, but he'd never hesitated to get rid of any Sand creatures that tried to impede him: what had convinced me that I would be different? How the heck had I been _right?_ He was an enigma, as was our indefinable 'relationship' thingummy, if it could even be called that. When I finally answered Prince, it was with the honest truth: "I don't know."

Prince raised a scarred eyebrow, his baffled expression fading rapidly. I sighed.

"He . . . I ran into him right after the Empress, um, gave me this." I gestured to my Sand-formed lower body. "Obviously I got out of there as fast as I could, and he gave chase, but when he caught up to me he just . . . stood there. I didn't know what was going on, and to be honest I don't think that he did either." Prince's expression was now one of barely restrained skepticism, so I went on: "I asked him why he was following me, but he answered in—uh, Dahaka-language, so obviously I couldn't understand it, but he sounded . . . confused: like he was trying to figure out the same thing. Finally I just decided that if he hadn't killed me already he wasn't going to, and kept on traveling through the garden— That's the real reason why there wasn't any Raiders there, by the way: the Dahaka had gotten them all. He probably _saved_ my life, actually. But after a while he started acting all weird and twitchy, and then he said something about my Ring and did his leapy-jumpy disappearing act." I shrugged. "That's it. It wasn't long after that that I met you."

The royal narrowed his eyes contemplatively, as though mulling over my words and trying to sort out their meaning. I walked through the waterfall to join him and stifled a curse as the freezing water drenched my skin and clothing; I'd been so thoroughly distracted by the conversation topic that I'd completely forgotten about the water's temperature.

"I do not believe that you are lying," Prince stated slowly, looking at me as I wrapped my arms around myself to conserve warmth, "but this tale is . . . strange. If I had not seen you speaking to the demon with my own eyes I would doubt your sanity."

_Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence,_ I thought sarcastically. But he had a point: I was doubting my _own_ sanity more with every moment that passed in this place.

I voiced none of these thoughts. Instead I said quietly, "I don't understand it any more than you do," which was true.

Prince just shook his head, looking down. There was a long moment of silence, too filled with both of our reflections to be awkward. Eventually, though, the royal frowned slightly, glancing back up at me.

"Why were you following me?"

Pulled abruptly from my musings, I twitched slightly in surprise, my brain scrambling wrap around his words; when it finally succeeded, I blinked in comprehension. Then I dazzled myself with my own awesome intelligence by saying, "Oh." Prince looked faintly annoyed, and opened his mouth to speak (presumably to ask for an actual answer), but I preempted him hurriedly: "_Oh,_ um, I was just . . . following you." That sounded even dumber. "You know, just to see if I could." There . . . that at least was an answer to his question, even if it wasn't a lot more sensible than my other attempted replies.

I tried a winning smile and received in return a blank stare. Prince sighed, shook his head, sending me a glance that appeared suspiciously resigned, and began to activate the Time-portal.

Unconsciously smoothing damp locks of coffee-brown hair into place, I turned to one of the fountains to replenish my energy. When I had finished, I glanced up in time to see Prince activate the last pressure plate, completing the steps needed to form the Time-warp vortex.

The Sand rose, swirling, into the air, and with a glance back at me to make sure I knew where he had gone, Prince entered, rising to float above the ground and then disintegrating into Sand. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I followed.

The experience of traveling through Time wasn't any less muddling the second time; I still felt as though I'd just been woken from a very deep sleep when I lurched out of the vortex, swaying on unsteady feet as I blinked and looked around at my suddenly rich, opulent surroundings. _No wonder the Empress spends all of her time in the past._

As soon as Prince saw me come out, he turned and walked out of the portal-room. I followed, allowing the freezing waterfall at the threshold to shock me out of my Sand-induced stupor. I was becoming accustomed (or at least resigned) to the sensation, though. Upon spotting the two Raiders waiting for us, I drew my sword in unison with Prince, wondering absently why the weapons here never seemed to rust, no matter how many times they were doused in various liquids. Once again, the Sand creatures were dealt with swiftly and efficiently with Prince and I working in concert to take them down, and I decided that (in comparison, at the very least) I sucked at solo fighting. I said as much as I followed Prince down the corridor.

He glanced back at me, replying dismissively, "You will improve."

I frowned, although I knew he couldn't see it, as he was occupied with climbing the ladder at the end of the passage. "How do _you_ know? Maybe I'm just naturally untalented."

Prince waited until he had jumped across to another ladder and reached the top and I had followed (utilizing my ability, of course), before answering: "You did last time."

I groaned at the reminder of his strange claims. "Prince, there's _no way_ I could have been there when you opened the Sands. I remember very distinctly where I was at the time, and it was . . ." I paused, ". . . not there." I'd been about to tell him that I hadn't even been in the same _world_ as him at the time, but it had occurred to me that, to Prince, this story would seem considerably less likely than the one I had just related to him about the Dahaka, and he'd had a hard time swallowing even _that_.

Imagine my surprise when he said only: "I know. You were in your home world."

I halted in astonishment, watching with wide eyes as Prince continued without me and attacked the waiting Crow Master, vaulting over him and slashing with his sword until the creature conceded defeat and retreated in crow form.

"How'd you know about that?" I demanded, finally chasing after Prince when he showed no signs of waiting for me, instead running along the wall to grab onto the rope hanging there and use it as a pendulum to reach the other side of the long gap.

"You told me. Well, you elaborated after we found out, anyway," he replied, his gaze darting around as he stepped back, trying to decide which of the numerous available routes to take next. We were back above the Garden Hall.

"That way," I informed him impatiently, pointing towards the furthest left section. "Am I to assume that this was while we were all dashing about like headless chickens trying to get to the Tower of Dawn?"

Prince stopped walking; I almost collided with his back. ". . . Chickens," he repeated. Then something extraordinary happened: his armored shoulders started shaking, and I watched for a moment, uncomprehending, before a small choking noise escaped him and I realized that he was _laughing._

A wide, exultant grin spread across my face, and I barely restrained a wild yell of triumph. I'd made Mr. Being-chased-by-a-gargantuan-black-demon-for-five-years-has-sucked-away-my-personality-like-a-sparkly-vampire actually _laugh!_ Even if it had been an accident! When I peered around him so that I could look up to his face, he was valiantly fighting a grin, but not succeeding very well. Upon spotting me, though, he somehow gained control of his facial expression, although the corners of his eyes were still crinkled with the laughter he was holding back. Undeterred, I grinned at him, and he allowed the smallest of smiles to grace his lips in return.

It was with a feeling of satisfaction that I watched him vault over the railing of the terrace we stood on, then jump out from it to swing across two poles, reaching the other side. I had accomplished _my_ self-assigned quest: now I could concentrate on Prince's. Although. . . I certainly wouldn't complain if I could get him to laugh again.

I focused my gaze and will on the far side of the gap: _**There. **_There was that odd rushing sensation, and the ever-accompanying flash of gold and brazen tone. Prince was standing directly on the other side of the gateway on the left, apparently waiting for me. It was around this time that I remembered what we had been talking about before I was distracted by his laughing, but decided that, despite the insistent nudging of my curiosity, it didn't matter: it could never have happened. It was impossible. Resolved not to be curious any longer (_Fat chance)_—or at least not to act on my curiosity, I clamped my mouth firmly shut against the questions that threatened to escape it and ran to catch up with Prince.

As I had anticipated, my mind refused to drop the issue: I'd spent a lot more of my short years pursuing my inquisitive nature than repressing it, and, as the old saying went, "old habits die hard." Before it had been easier, because I had dismissed everything as 'only a dream', but . . . honestly, I wasn't sure of that anymore. I gulped nervously at the thought, my heart pounding, as I followed Prince through the gate he had just opened. If I accepted that this insanity I was living _wasn't_ a dream, that, in some way, I _was_ still alive, and that the people and events in this strange alternate reality _were_ real . . . it would open up a whole new donkey-load of complications for my curiosity to gnaw on, and what little simplicity of lookout I had retained so far would be smashed to smithereens. But . . .

I looked intently at Prince, who had decimated the two Raider's waiting on the balcony we came to without me ever needing to draw my sword. He was grim, melodramatic, acted slightly superior (which was quite annoying, let me tell you), he was a bit of a nutcase, and he had _way_ too large a repertoire of cheesy battle cries; he was also my friend.

In answer to my inner dilemma earlier, worrying over the complications of treating this as anything other than pure fiction . . . I was pretty sure it was too late for that. My choice had been made (and it _had_ been a choice, conscious or not) from the moment I had broken my nose on Prince's breastplate.

"Yay for you, Prince," I muttered under my breath. The royal, oblivious to the fact that my whole (admittedly unusual) world view had just tilted on its axis, jumped up to move along a ledge, making it one step closer to the Waterworks.

[o{o}o]

The remainder of the Garden Tower was activated rather simply; I didn't even have to give Prince any more hints. It _was_ a bit unnerving when I encountered my first Blade-dancers (_invisible_ ones, no less, which I believe were actually called Shadows, but eh), although at least they directed no creeper perverted comments in my direction—they seemed more faintly disgusted by me than anything else (whether because I was a female or because they could sense that I didn't belong in this Timeline I wasn't sure). Unlike in the game, though, they could be detected as no more than faint ripples of light in the air, and if they stood in shadow they weren't even that; understandably, it was a tad difficult to fight when you weren't sure what exactly to aim your sword at. Prince and I managed, though, and I opted once again to wait in the garden while he went about pushing levers and leaping off of things. This resulted in me having to fight a batch of Raiders (which came running when Prince got the water flowing) by myself, but I defeated them with no more than some deep cuts in non-vital locations and a little bit of lightheadedness from blood loss, and even that was soon remedied by the nearby fountain down the corridor we had come from. It was also rather satisfying to confirm that I really _wasn't_ helpless after all, and I tried to ignore my subconscious' reminder that Prince had been right: my solo fighting was improving, if only by increments.

Soon, though, we were heading back to Central Hall via the Garden Hall, Prince appearing immensely satisfied with himself, and me just wondering what I was going to do when I saw the Empress again. Yell at her? Attack her? Studiously ignore her? Pretend that I'd never seen her before?

I finally silenced the litany of possibilities, deciding that I'd just figure it out when the time came. Honestly, I wasn't sure what I thought of the enigmatic woman: I was predisposed to dislike her, because she was threatening Prince's relationship (could it be called that when one of the members had no memory of the other?) with Farah and because she was trying to kill him (two things that would normally be contradictory, but hey: what about this situation was _normal?)_, but she _had_ helped me: that fact was undeniable, even if she had had her own motives for doing so, and I knew that, in reality, her situation was not so different from Prince's, and her actions understandable in light of that.

I was frowning slightly, deep in my contemplations, as I teleported from a balcony to join Prince on the floor of the Garden Hall. I'd expected complications when I decided that maybe this wasn't a dream after all, but . . . wow. It was giving me a headache just thinking about it. And yet . . . the very strangeness, the incomprehensibility of it all was beginning to seem less strange and more the norm. Ever since that day that I had gotten the Ring, had the car accident, ever since I'd woken from that coma, my life had been a constant whirlwind of change. And . . . I had changed too. Or, perhaps not _me_ so much as the way I viewed things . . . which was maybe the same thing. I wasn't altogether certain.

I _knew_ that at least one thing had changed, though. As I followed Prince through the sunlit corridors that would lead back to Central Hall, I looked into myself, searching for the ever-present, indefinable lack of presence that resided with me; it was there, as always, making itself known through a subtle, almost physical ache.

"Prince," I inquired slowly, turning to the one person who might actually answer when I asked this question, "do you ever feel like you . . . like you've lost something, something big, something important, but you just can't figure out what?" I'd described the hollow sensation that rested achingly in my chest as best I could, but the words still felt inadequate. The question sounded rather silly, actually, now that it was out.

He stopped just before reaching for a ledge, and looked at me. To my disbelief, the flickering fire behind his eyes slowly diminished and finally faded into bitter, haunted gray ashes. "I know _exactly_ what I have lost," he said. I shivered a little at the quiet intensity in his tone.

"Farah," I whispered, understanding instantly what he spoke of.

Prince nodded, closing his eyes; when he opened them again, a spark had returned. I found that I was almost relieved. If the fire in his eyes was one of desperation, at least it was a living fire: once that was gone, all that was left were the cold, dead ashes.

"Farah," he agreed bitterly, speaking her name like it was something both precious and coated with poison. "Yes: I remember _exactly _what I have lost." He glanced sidelong at me, his expression something I could not define. "If you are truly as ignorant as you seem to be, I envy you."

I knitted my brow in confusion, still staring at him. ". . . What do you mean?"

"I know what you have lost, as well," he told me, his eyes studying mine for a reaction. "I know the reason you asked your question."

There was a tight knot of something in my stomach, like fear or dread; I ignored it, querying flippantly in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, "What, was I in love with a Sand creature or something?"

Prince's lips twitched slightly, into an odd sort of grimace. "Someone you loved was taken by the Sands, yes."

I smiled a half-smile, dismissing his words. "I don't think so," I said, really meaning, _Yeah right. _"I've told you before that I wasn't anywhere _near_ the Hourglass when the Sands were released." Something that he had said before suddenly caught my attention, and I paused, frowning. "Wait, you _envy_ me? Why? 'Better to have loved and lost than to never love at all', right?"

Prince's eyes tightened suddenly; a muscle in his jaw twitched, the only thing giving away the fact that he was less than totally calm. "You have no _idea_," he said, "absolutely _no _idea how fortunate you are. You don't know the pain that your ignorance has rescued you from. Don't bother attempting to convince me otherwise."

Ignoring his last comment, I argued stubbornly, "I disagree. If I ever _was _in love with someone (which I'm not, by the way), and I lost them, I'd at least want the memories to hold onto."

Prince's breathing slowed perceptibly; he looked at me, his appearance deceptively calm. "Really?" he asked. "Do you really believe that . . . Freckles?"

I didn't even think about it. I said: "Don't call me that."

And the emptiness in my chest roared in agony. I gasped, halting abruptly and trying desperately to control the tears suddenly pooling in the corners of my eyes. _"Don't. Call. Me. That,"_ I bit out again between clenched teeth. It was _important_, I knew, but I couldn't quite fathom the reason.

"Whatever you say, Freckles," Prince agreed, turning to climb up onto the ledge. There was a faint edge of satisfaction in his tone, like he'd been proven right—and I felt hatred suddenly, deeply, and intensely, like I had never hated before. My eyes bored into his retreating back, my hands trembling with the intensity of my ineffectual fury.

_What did you __**do**__ to me?_ I wanted to demand. But the words died on my lips; I couldn't bring myself to ask. If a single word (_Don't think it, __**don't**__ think it)_ could cripple me so easily, I feared that Prince was right: I really didn't want to know the truth.

[o{o}o]

**AN: *hearts for eyes* Aaaaw, I love the friendship fluffiness. I'm enjoying this a lot more than I'd anticipated . . . AND THEN PRINCE HAD TO GO AND RUIN IT ALL BY BEING AN IDIOT! To be fair, Jenny's being kind of dumb too, with all of this denial crap . . . but would **_**you**_** believe it? I just don't want her to accept all of this too soon, as that was one of the complaints I got in NWIHP. So, feedback is always appreciated! *hinthint* ;D**

**~Killer Zebra**


	12. The Truth

**AN: *sniffs happily* Ah, the joys of quick updating! Makes me happy, it does. And just to prove it to you, I will give you a big, huge, demented-looking, kind of crinkle-faced smiley: XD.  
Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to leave feedback! Enjoy the chapter. :)**

[o{o}o]

Jenny (narrating): _There he was. His stained and worn green cloak blended nicely with the shadows on the wall he huddled against, so that I would never have noticed him if I hadn't been looking carefully. Pooling on the floor around him was a dark, sticky substance that I strongly suspected was blood._  
**(Excerpt from Chapter 6 of **_**Not What I Had Planned) **_

[o{o}o]

_Last Chapter: __**What did you **__**DO **__**to me?**_ _I wanted to demand. But the words died on my lips; I couldn't bring myself to ask. If a single word could cripple me so easily, I feared that Prince was right: I really didn't want to know the truth._

**Chapter 11: The Truth**

It was with a subdued demeanor that I trailed Prince back towards Central Hall, teleporting through some traps and encountering a few Keepers on the way. I had felt before that I hated Prince; now I recognized the truth of my feelings: I was scared. And angry, both at Prince for (_Don't think it)_—saying what he'd said, and at myself for being so frightened of the reaction he'd caused in me. My chest ached with pain, as though whatever wound was there had been opened anew, and all of the terror and sadness and confusion that I felt had transmuted into rage at the cause of it: Prince.

Knowing the cause of my feelings, though, didn't make them any less potent; when Prince, his expression ever-so-slightly softened in a silent invitation for reconciliation, looked expectantly for me to offer it as I usually did, I only glared icily at him. Surprise flickered briefly through his eyes, but then his face settled back into that familiar grim mask that I hated so much. Very deliberately, I focused my gaze on some distant point above his shoulder, quite clearly (in my opinion, anyway) indicating, _Yeah, I'll forgive you . . . someday._

And then we had reached the archway that opened high above the floor of Central Hall. Prince clambered down onto the staggered, sheer cliffs of raised flooring, making his way level by level to the floor. I waited above, watching him descend, but not really seeing: my thoughts were elsewhere.

_Freckles._ For the first time, I allowed the word to slip into my mind, tasting and examining the overpowering wave of loneliness, of grief and loss that it brought. No one really close to me had ever died, but . . . I was pretty sure that this was a similar feeling. What did it _mean, _though? I already knew what Prince would answer to that question: that I _had_ lost someone. I had no idea, and who else was there to ask? Except . . . one other person might know. Suddenly alert again, I swept my eyes across Central Hall until I spotted the red-garbed figure that I had known would be there: Kaileena, the Empress of Time.

I focused my gaze a few feet from where Prince had finally reached the bottom.

_**There.**_

Gold light swept through me, and a brazen sound pealed out and resonated through the Hall. Startled by the sound, the Empress quickly turned, almost raising the sword she held into a guard position before spotting the intruders (i.e. me and Prince) and dropping the defensive pose.

"Oh," she said. "It's you." If I hadn't already known the circumstances, I probably wouldn't have detected the faint hint of irony behind her dismissive tone.

Prince came forward and passed my unmoving figure, halting a few feet before he reached the person he knew only as 'the girl in red'. "You seem surprised to see me," he observed, attempting and failing to hide the trace of suspicion in his voice.

Kaileena shrugged, her eyes widening briefly with something like alarm as they landed on me, then going back to Prince. "Surprised only that you insist on prolonging the inevitable. Who is your companion?"

I was disgruntled to note that Prince seemed a little startled at the reminder that he even _had_ a companion. He glanced back to me, frowning a little. "This is Jenny. She travels with me, and has already made the acquaintance of the Empress." _Wow, Prince: way to make me feel appreciated. _

The red-garbed woman looked at me again, and this time the expression in her emerald eyes was almost . . . pleading? I nearly dismissed the notion until I realized that it wasn't entirely unreasonable: I knew her secret, and if I chose to disclose that to Prince, much of her careful planning would be rendered useless. Luckily for her, doing so would mess up my plans as well, so I just smiled, ultra-polite and completely meaningless.

"Hello," I greeted, my tone just as bland as the smile. The Empress nodded graciously in response, and the pleading in her eyes vanished. If I tried really hard, I could imagine that it had been replaced by relief.

"Why did you help me?" Prince questioned. He had obviously been wondering this for some time, and his confusion was evidenced in both his face and voice.

Kaileena's focus shifted back to him; her expression grew thoughtful. "I . . . don't know. I guess half because you remind me of the Empress, or who I wish she could be."

"What do you mean?" Prince's scarred eyebrow quirked upward in inquiry.

Some of the Empress' carefully constructed mask dropped. Her eyes saddened, and she sighed. "Like you she knows her fate: she has seen it in the Timeline. But where you fight it, she has submitted: she accepts it. They say 'knowledge is power', but _I_ say it is a poison. Knowing the date and manner of her own death torments her: the closer it draws, the greater her pain."

Prince stepped forward and dipped his head slightly, holding her gaze with his own. Apparently I'd been forgotten again. _Flattering._ "And you wish she would fight her fate, like me?"

Her eyes dropped to the floor. "Maybe it would give her something to live for." _Maybe then she would stop talking about herself in third person._ I was starting to get annoyed: I didn't even have Ubisoft to blame for the abysmal (and utterly _failing)_ attempts to turn Kaileena into an acceptable love interest.

Prince stared at her as though he could draw out the answers to his questions by will alone. "You said that that was only _half_ the reason. What's the other half?"

"I have known my whole life that what is written in the Timeline cannot be changed," explained the Empress, "yet something inside me wants you to succeed." She looked up again, and I realized with astonishment that she was telling the truth—or, at least, she had managed to convince _me_ (who knew exactly whom and what she was) that she wasn't lying.

"And do you think I will?" Prince inquired in a low voice.

The Empress shook her head almost pityingly. "No. But I admire you for trying." Seeming to recall the saber she still held in her hands, she extended it towards Prince, her mask falling into place once again, although the change was so subtle that I might never have noticed it if I hadn't been paying such close attention.

"Thank you," he said, accepting the weapon. He moved to sheathe it, but then paused suddenly, glancing up at the woman in red with a slightly ashamed expression. "Your name," he murmured. "I haven't even asked you your name. I've been so—"

She interrupted before he could continue with his self-recrimination: "It's . . . Kaileena." _A.K.A. Miss Melon-boobs; A.K.A. the Empress of Time; A.K.A. __**NOT**__ Farah, thank you very much._ "You should go . . . the Hourglass is more than half empty; you haven't much time."

Prince set his mouth into a grim line at the reminder of the true reason he was here (which was _not_ to flirt with the Empress, contrary to appearances). He nodded in farewell and headed towards the turnstile that was the centerpiece of the Hall, and with a quick glance back at the Empress, who merely stood and watched with impassive green eyes, I pursued.

"So," I remarked dryly when I reached him, making sure to lower my voice so that our observer couldn't hear me, "chatting it up with Melon-boobs, are we?"

Prince frowned disapprovingly at me. "Her _name_ is Kaileena."

"Yeah. I noticed." I shrugged. "My name suits her better." It occurred to me that, being the Empress of Time, the topic of conversation might have some sort of enhanced hearing—but when I glanced over my shoulder at her she wasn't even looking in our direction anymore, so I decided that it was safe to assume that she hadn't heard.

Prince braced his feet against the flooring and pushed the lever, slowly muscling it one quarter-turn counter-clockwise. I watched, fascinated, as the cliffs that we had come from swiftly sank into the murky abyss that lay on either side of the middle strip of flooring (the only part that would reliably hold still), and, on the other side, a new set of cliffs rose in direct correlation. Prince released the lever and made to go in that direction, but I stopped him with a hand on his elbow. He turned, raising an eyebrow.

"I'll catch up," I said.

For a moment my words didn't seem to register, but then he blinked in surprise, pulling away from me. "What?"

"I have some . . . uh, girl stuff I need to talk to Kaileena about. I'll catch up later, okay?"

Despite looking slightly spooked at the 'girl stuff' comment, Prince was apparently even more spooked at the idea of being separated once more. "What happened to 'Melon-boobs'?" He was apologizing with his eyes again—and yes, I admitted it: asking Kaileena some questions wasn't the only reason I wanted to split up for a while. Prince was my friend, but I was still really ticked off at him; I wanted to give myself some time to cool off, and him some time to reconsider the wisdom of some of his words and actions.

" 'Melon-boobs' has been temporarily retired," I answered, gesturing emphatically to the cliffs. When he still hesitated, I got fed up with it and snapped impatiently: "Go _on_ Prince. I'll be fine, and I'll see you soon." His eyes hardened again at the words, and he glowered at me for a moment before turning to comply. _Great. Now __**he's**__ mad at __**you.**_ Well, boo-hoo: we were quarreling. It happened sometimes.

Frowning, I looked to the Empress and began slowly making my way in her direction. She caught the movement from the corner of her eye and glanced over, her eyes flicking between me and Prince's retreating form in mild surprise.

"Was there something you needed, Jenny?" she asked politely when I got close.

"Jennifer, please," I requested, positioning things on a more formal ground. She nodded in acquiescence, and with a glance over my shoulder to ensure that Prince was well out of hearing distance, I answered her first question: "Yes, actually, there is."

Kaileena's eyes were wary—what did she think I was going to ask of her? World domination? It would have been comical, how suspicious everyone (although 'everyone' was rather limited, come to think of it) here was, if it hadn't been so terribly _sad._ Kaileena and Prince really were very similar, both in their situations and the way they had responded to them.

I said: "I need information."

Her wary expression lifted only slightly; the mask she had worn around Prince was either gone or replaced by a different one. "What sort of information? If you wish to know your fate, I cannot tell you: as I have said before, you do not belong to this—to _my_—Timeline."

I dismissed her words with a wave of my hand. "I wasn't going to ask that."

She didn't speak again, but her expression clearly questioned: _Then what __**were**__ you going to ask?_

This was the hard part. I didn't _know_ exactly what I wanted to ask: I only knew that I was, mentally and emotionally, _really_ confused, and that the Empress might know the cause. Finally I just decided to ask the most obvious question, even though this was one that she might not (directly, at least) know the answer to. "Earlier . . . Prince said something, something that shouldn't have been all that remarkable . . . but, um, I reacted really, um, strongly." I swallowed, looking down at the floor and holding back the moisture in my eyes. "He called me 'Freckles'." Even now, having experienced it before, the painful recoil from the word somehow took me by surprise.

"Ah," said the Empress, and her tone was knowing. I looked at her, into eyes of deep green, and suddenly she was ancient, as ancient as Time itself; it was . . . kind of disturbing, actually, like seeing a mummy in a bikini. Then I closed my eyes for a moment (against the creepy images that that thought called up), and when I opened them she was just Melon-boobs again. A long moment passed, until she murmured finally: "His name was Lucan."

_Lucan. _I blinked; waited for the recoil; blinked again. "Uh . . . should I have recognized that?"

She smiled, the same slow, somewhat bitter smile that I was accustomed to seeing on her face when Prince wasn't around. "No. No, I would have been surprised if you had remembered with so little prompting. It is strange that you are asking these questions at all." Here she looked at me thoughtfully. "Very strange. Perhaps it has something to do with the traded fates . . ." The last bit was muttered under her breath; I wasn't sure that I was supposed to hear.

"Traded fates?" I wondered aloud, frowning in bafflement. I had come seeking answers, but it seemed that, as per usual, I would only find more questions.

"I thought that you would have guessed by now," Kaileena commented enigmatically. When I just looked at her, eyebrows raised, she smiled slightly and continued: "You are fateless; you have no place in this Timeline." I nodded impatiently: this was old news. Her next words, though, were completely unexpected: "You are outside the Timeline, and thus posses the ability to change it; you have no fate, so you have the ability to manipulate the fates of others."

I stared incredulously. _You're kidding me._ Then something occurred to me; something about _'doing what I must'._

"So _that's_ what you meant!" I exclaimed, wondering whether I should bother to be outraged at being used like that. When the Empress quirked an eyebrow in inquiry, I stated indignantly, "You dumped me in the middle of the Garden Tower, with Sand creatures all around and _no_ protection whatsoever, because you somehow think that _I_ will help you escape your fate." Not only was it vaguely affronting, but it was also ridiculous: just because I could apparently manipulate the Timeline didn't mean that I was a walking cataclysm for Timeline-warps. _But then again,_ I thought, suddenly reconsidering, _when you're faced with your own death, even an unlikely chance is something to be held onto._ I remembered the sliver of hope in Kaileena's eyes when she realized who I was. _. . ._ _**Darn**__ it. Now I'm feeling sympathy for __**Melon-boobs?**__ What is the world coming to?_

She nodded, confirming my theory. "You've done it before."

Now I was curious, despite not being at all sold on the 'there when Sands were opened' story (after all, I had been telling the truth: I was nowhere _near_ Azad when Prince unlocked the Hourglass). "Explain, please?"

"His name was Lucan, as I have said," the Empress began, her voice lowering slightly. "He was protected from the scourge of the Sands by his Artifact, the Compass, and he aided you in your quest. Over time, I believe that you came to deeply care for each other . . ." she hesitated. "Maybe even love. I cannot say: I have the ability to see the Timeline, not into the human heart."

I felt the sudden urge to sit down cross-legged on the floor; the listening pose. She was telling a story, which both she and Prince claimed was _my_ story, but . . . it didn't feel that way. It felt like a tale that belonged to someone else. My questions still hadn't been answered, though. Hopefully this was all building up to something. I opened my mouth to ask again, but Kaileena resumed her tale before I could speak.

"But you also developed friendships with your other companions, the Princess of India and the Prince of Persia, and so when the time came for the Princess to die, as was written in the Timeline, you . . . stopped it. You changed it." There was a pause, but I didn't try to speak this time; I could feel that there was more, so I waited. "You acted in ignorance," the Empress said evenly, confirming my hunch. "You did not know of your ability, and you did not know of its price: you can change fate, but the Timeline must remain balanced. When you saved your friend's life, it was only at the cost of another. A life for a life: Lucan's life for that of the Princess. "

It still didn't feel like my story. But suddenly I wasn't so sure that it _wasn't_ my story, either. It was impossible, sure, but wasn't the rest of this?

I asked slowly, "Then . . . why don't I remember? And what does _any_ of this have to do with 'Freckles'?" I was rather proud of the fact that the last part managed to sound faintly exasperated, despite the stab of pain that I felt at voicing the word once again. It still hurt—I didn't think that it was going to stop that, but at least it couldn't render me breathless with pain anymore, as it had the first time.

"Your memories were lost when Prince used the Hourglass to recapture the Sands and turn back time, and you were sent back to you home world. As for Freckles . . . it was what Lucan called you," Kaileena informed me.

The pieces moved and slotted together in my mind, and they fit, forming almost a complete picture. It made sense . . . well, as much as anything made sense, but—I wasn't sure that I could believe it. _His name was Lucan; I loved him; I killed him._ The thoughts provoked no reaction except to make me nervous and agitated, and even more confused than I'd been before. There was no response from the hollow place in my chest.

"You're telling the truth?" I asked uncertainly. It wasn't—quite—a rhetorical question.

"Yes," Kaileena replied. She stood straight and tall in her pointy-toed boots, looking straight at me, and I didn't know whether I should believe her. So I settled for not _dis_believing her. I was 'dead', fateless, befriended of a fictional Prince and occasionally stalked by a fictional behemoth black demon; I could deal with having a few more unanswered questions brewing at the back of my mind.

[o{o}o]

**AN: O.o I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that the Empress just became Raya in Chapter 10 of NWIHP.  
OPOD: *shrug*  
Yeah, you're right, my fishy friend. Who cares? Well, you know, if you actually **_**do**_** care you can review or PM me about it . . . *cough* . . . Views on Kaileena's revelations? REVIEW! The more reviews, the quicker the update! C= **

**~Killer Zebra**


	13. No, It Is NOT Sparkly

**AN: Hey, people! :) Guess what? My computer crashed! Luckily for the both of us, this has happened before, and so I had made sure to have a backup. If this chapter's format seems a bit weird, though, that's why. Thanks to all of my amazing reviewers! You're the best! :D**

[o{o}o]

Jenny (narrating): _I was finally coming to terms with my exile in this foreign world, and was determined to make the best of it. I just had to focus on one thing at a time, and for now that was getting to the Hourglass._  
**(Excerpt from Chapter 17 of _Not What I Had Planned_)**

[o{o}o]

_Last Chapter: I didn't know whether I should believe her. So I settled for not disbelieving her. I was dead, fateless, befriended of a fictional Prince and occasionally stalked by a fictional behemoth black demon; I could deal with having a few more unanswered questions brewing at the back of my mind._

**Chapter 12: No, It Is Not Sparkly**

The Empress of Time appeared to be waiting for a response, so I looked at her and nodded, allowing her to interpret the gesture in whatever way she chose. This seemed to satisfy her, for the edges of her mouth curved upward in a small smile—but then, still smiling, she raised her right hand and looked towards it; instantly it was surrounded in the yellow glow of Sand.

My eyes widened in alarm, and I took several quick steps away, eyeing the Sand. "Whoa, whoa. Uh . . . what are you doing?"

"You complained of being left defenseless," the Empress explained smoothly, her eyes never leaving what she was doing. "I decided that your point was valid."

I started to speak again, but quieted upon realizing that the Sand swirling around and through the Empress' slender fingers was thickening, solidifying into a recognizable form. It looked almost like . . .

"Is that a sword?"

My only reply was a momentary pulse of intense white light from the Sand, forcing me to squint and look away, raising one arm to shield my eyes. When the light dimmed enough for me to glance back, blinking away the spots in my vision, Kaileena was posed dramatically, a dark silhouette against the radiant, indistinguishable object she held raised above her head, its brightness rapidly fading. I wondered whether the position was accidental, then decided almost immediately that it was highly unlikely. When the light had finally faded to only a faint glimmering luminescence, the Empress lowered the blade she now held and, positioning it so that it lay flat across both of her palms, extended it to me.

I stepped closer and swept my gaze along its length, taking in the long (but not too long), slightly curved, double-edged scimitar blade, the elaborate engravings and abstract patterns that ran all along the blade and grew even more intricate when they thickened and swarmed over the (admittedly lovely, despite being over-decorated) cross-guard, the blessedly pattern-less grip (which, unfortunately for my sore eyes, was bound in leather dyed a deep azure), and the long, oval, deep blue sapphire that was set in inner side of the pommel. Altogether, it was so incredibly extravagant that the thought of using it to kill something was almost horrifying, but I didn't really have any complaints. Except . . .

"Er . . . is there any way you could make it less—" I gestured vaguely "—erm, sparkly?"

Yeah. It sparkled. A low-key, subtle sparkle, but still sparkle.

Kaileena's expression grew defensive. "It's beautiful. Very feminine."

"Yeah, but I have to _use_ it," I said, still eyeing the thing with trepidation.

"You also have to look at it," she stated pragmatically. I took one more glance at her stubborn visage and realized that resistance was futile: the sword she had made was sparkly, and it was going to stay that way if she had anything to say about it (and she had _everything_ to say about it). Wondering if she'd ever been tempted to give _Prince_ a sparkly sword (and deciding immediately that the very idea was ludicrous), I pursed my lips and unceremoniously plucked the scimitar from her grasp.

I had to admit . . . sparkly or no, it felt like it was made for my hands (this may or may not have been because it had been). The Empress had done something to make it lighter even than the Raider's weapon at my belt, but it still carried enough weight to have some clout behind it when I delivered a blow, and when I made some experimental passes with it (well away from anything that could be damaged—Kaileena, for instance, although she would probably see it coming and dodge), it responded beautifully to my direction.

"It's magnificent," I pronounced, meaning it. It was with equal sincerity that I added, "Although it could do without the sparkles."

Kaileena tilted her head, looked at me, and blinked very slowly. I blinked back (throwing in a dazzlingly innocent smile for good measure), unceremoniously discarded my old, inferior weapon and slid the new one into its place in the sheath at my hip. I received a few vaguely incredulous looks from the Empress when I suddenly started hopping in place for a few seconds (for the purpose of settling the new scimitar in, although a little jerking on the belt would have worked just as well), but ignored her. Drat it, if I wanted to behave slightly insanely at times, then in the name of all things chocolate, I was going to do so!

Then I was finished, and it was time to go, and I met the Empress' calm emerald eyes, suddenly uncertain. Her motives were selfish, and the sword she'd given me was sparkly (honestly, I was short enough on dignity as it was), but . . . she was just trying to survive, as was Prince (and me, actually, although technically I was already dead), and she was helping me; I couldn't help but feel gratitude. Finally I settled for a deep nod in her direction, and a smile that I hoped conveyed some of my appreciation.

Just in case it didn't, though, I also contributed a more conventional method of expressing gratefulness before leaving:

"Um . . . thanks."

[o{o}o]

I came out of my encounter with the Empress of Time with three things: a sparkly sword, some answers that were only slightly less confusing than Prince's, and a growing sympathy for someone that, up until this point, I'd pretty much despised: Kaileena. I still thought that she needed to shrink a few dozen bra sizes (okay, so she couldn't help her melon-boobs, but she could at least do her best to prevent them from exploding out of the pathetic scrap of scarlet material that she called a top), and stop flirting with and/or trying to kill Prince, but if I disregarded all of that and just looked at her, as a person, without any bias . . . well, I still didn't like her much. But neither did I really wish her ill, and I could certainly sympathize with her predicament. It was _highly_ irritating.

"I hate my life," I announced to the sky, standing on the balcony above the large, open terrace where, I knew, Prince had fought a golem not so long ago. Then, as an afterthought, I amended: "Er, death." Feeling slightly better upon realizing that I hadn't really meant it, I glanced down and searched with my eyes until I'd spotted what I deemed an appropriate destination point (near the gate I would be leaving through), and then teleported to the wide stone terrace. Upon reaching it I took a lazy glance around to make sure that the guard here hadn't been refreshed since Prince dealt with the last shift, but I wasn't really worried. In fact, I felt completely safe and relaxed, calm . . . Peaceful . . .

Then I took a deep breath, smiled, and turned around to face the doorway that I knew would be there.

My voice lightly tinged with reprobation, I said, "Stop that." The 'hallway' promptly obeyed, and, involuntarily, I released a small sigh as the weight of all of my fears and worries came back full force. "Still haven't given up on getting me to drink the sparkle-water yet, hmm?" I inquired rhetorically, strolling forward and leaning against the doorframe to stare into the blackness that the hallway always ended in.

The void did it's rippling 'shrug' thing, and I couldn't help but rub my arms uneasily as the ripple passed by; it was disconcerting.

"How do you do that, anyway?" I wondered aloud, half exasperated, half genuinely curious.

Shrug again.

Scowling without conviction, I lowered myself into a cross-legged position and, placing my hands in my lap and my back against the wall, leaned my head back and closed my eyes. "So, Dr. Phil," I began conversationally, "what aspects of my tortured and mysterious psyche shall we discuss today?"

There was a pause, then a light flicker of puzzlement from the passage.

"Oh, nothing," I responded dismissively. "I was just kidding. Dr. Phil's a shrink—a therapist—from my world, a famous one, and you seem to show up whenever I really need a listening ear. That's all. Besides," I added, "it beats calling you 'hallway' or 'magic-fountain'."

The newly dubbed 'Phil' shrugged once more, apparently ambivalent towards the issue.

Without any more preamble, I launched into the 'therapy session': "Okay, so you know Prince, right?" I didn't wait for a reply, instead muttering under my breath, "Well duh, of course you know Prince. Anyway, he was saying that I'd been to this world before, that I'd been there when he opened the Hourglass, so I decided to verify the information by talking to the Empress of Time."

Phil listened.

"She told me the same thing, only with more details . . . Apparently my not being from this world or this Timeline gives me the freedom to mess around with Fate, and I used that ability to save someone's life, even though they'd been fated to die, but only at the cost of the life of 'someone I loved'. I don't remember any of this, though, since Prince turned back time . . . but she said his name was Lucan." At this point I opened my eyes again, looking intently up at the plain sandstone ceiling. "_Lucan_," I repeated. I'd been about to continue my venting, and explain to the void at the end of the passage that I wasn't really convinced about any of it—but suddenly the name felt familiar, and its taste was a strange, wistful mixture of laughter and heartache. Disturbed, I physically shook myself, trying to dispel the sensation. It didn't work.

I frowned. "Um, then Kaileena—that's the Empress, in case you didn't know," I added, although Phil didn't seem surprised, "—she gave me a sword . . ." It occurred to me suddenly that most of the swords Prince had in the game were more than they seemed, often with special, Sand-granted abilities. "I don't know if it's a normal sword or not. It might have a secret switch hidden somewhere in all of this kerfuffle that triggers the Apocalypse for all I know." My head tilted forward again, and I briefly shifted into an awkward half-upright position so that I could tug my new sword out of its sheath and study it.

I sensed interest, then something like incredulity coming from Phil; if it had had eyebrows to raise, I felt sure that it would have.

"And no, it is _not_ sparkly," I declared stubbornly, sending a sidelong glare at the pitch-black void that the hallway ended in as though daring it to contradict me. Prudently, it refrained from responding. "Now, I'm going to find Prince again," I continued as though there had been no interruption, "and maybe by then I'll have gotten some idea of what to think of this whole mess." _Yeah. Good luck with that._

I grabbed the side of the doorframe above me to pull myself to my feet, then paused to ask curiously, "What do _you_ think of this whole mess?"

There was a long moment of stillness. I could almost imagine the, _"Ummm . . ."_

A grin tugged at the corners of my lips. "Yeah: me too. Thanks again for being a great shrink, and see you next time!" I gave a cheerful little half-wave as I turned to leave. But then I stopped and spun around abruptly, frowning thoughtfully into the void.

"Hey . . . I meant to ask you: _why_ are you stalking me again?"

The light in the hallway increased slightly, gaining sunshiny warmth, and it let out a series of ripples, in what I could have sworn was . . . laughter?

"What's so funny?" I questioned, crossing my arms over my chest.

It didn't respond for a time, and when it finally did it was only with another ripple-shrug, this one accompanied by a faintly apologetic feeling.

"Yeah," I sighed, rolling my eyes, "I know. You can't exactly give a detailed answer." I brushed one hand along the wall briefly with the tips of my fingers (wondering as I did so if the hall was even really part of whatever sentience I spoke to here, or if it was just a prop) as I departed, again feeling like the weight on my shoulders had —if only ever-so-slightly— been lightened.

The next part of the journey I knew: through the gate on the opposite side of the terrace and (bypassing the pressure plate that Prince would use) up into the room which was empty of anything but a fountain. I went this way, using my ability to teleport in order to reach the fountain room. Upon arriving I released a nearly inaudible sigh and approached the fountain, dipping my head to take a swallow and allowing a moment to marvel at the sensation (as I always did, when I could), then scooping up some more water and using it to rinse my face (which was slightly less marvelous. Magical healing-water was all well and good, but the fact remained that it was just _cold_). I turned away from the fountain when I'd finished, observing the waiting opening in the wall that was blocked only by the regular passage of the spinning blades of what seemed like nothing so much as a gigantic fan. It was no such thing, of course, but I couldn't erase the idea from my mind, and so had to suppress a smile as I stood in the doorway and began counting, keeping track of when the blades passed in preparation for my next teleport. Beyond that point, though, things were different from my memory of them. Prince had already been through, pulling levers and shifting things about as he went, and so (though the route would be easy enough to navigate, since I knew the general direction that Prince was heading in) I was confused for a nanosecond after teleporting (with careful timing, of course) through the swiftly-spinning fan mechanism, stopping to stare at the wooden platform I stood on, which wasn't quite the way that my memory informed me it was supposed to be.

The distraction was enough that I was taken completely off-guard when, with only the split-second's warning of a vicious snarl from my left, something big, spiky, and scorching hot rammed into my shoulder, making me tumble backwards and sending a tearing pain through my shoulder and upper back. I released a similar noise, although mine was a snarl of pain rather than rage, and half rolled, half scrambled away as I attempted to draw my sword without slicing my own throat in the process. As soon as I had wrested it out of its sheath, I heaved myself up into a crouched position, cradling my injured left arm against my thigh and using the other (in conjunction with my sparkly sword, of course) to block another lunge from the thing that was attacking me.

Its form was lean and muscled, built like a twisted, warped reproduction of an ordinary dog or wolf, excepting the sharp, jutting jaw and the long, muscled hind legs that enabled those devastating leap-attacks that I'd hated so much when playing the game. The creature was obviously constructed for nothing but the destruction of any flesh-and-blood creature that it got into its sights. Its eyes shone with a menacing yellow light, and its back and (basically nonexistent) neck were covered with plates of barbed armor (the cause of the deep tears in my left shoulder). Rather than paws, it sported four razor-sharp, claw-like digits at the end of each of its limbs; the whole of its furless hide was a smoky red color, highlighting the fact that the beast was anything but natural. Another of the same kind could be seen approaching from behind it, and suddenly I really wished to be standing. If nothing else, it would help my morale: these things weren't exactly the friendliest canines I'd ever encountered.

Attempting (sort of—pretending to attempt, but not really attempting because I had secretly accepted that any such endeavor would be indisputably in vain) to suppress my heavy breathing and the adrenaline pumping through my veins, I pulled my eyebrows together in a frown, looking at creatures that I now identified as Spike Beasts. "How about . . . you go explode somewhere else?" I suggested helpfully. The nearest one, its spikes already decorated with the dark, wet substance that was my blood, growled and leapt at me; I decided that at this point it would be prudent to shut up. I dodged away, maneuvering so that my attacker was between myself and the other Spike Beast and extending my sword's edge to slice the creature's soft underbelly as I went. It bellowed in anguish and began leaking Sand, turning a grayish-brown color, so I knew that I'd scored a good hit (the speed of its demise might also have had something to do with the quality of the sword that Kaileena had given me: maybe it sparkled and looked more like something that would be displayed in an art museum than a sword, but _man_ could it do some damage).

There was a moment of calm, where the Spike Beast stood there fuming (literally) and I took the opportunity to scramble to my feet, but I'd forgotten something rather important, and— the creature exploded, the heat and light hitting me in a synonymous wave; I'd been standing too close. The force of the blast threw me backwards and off of the platform.

I was in a haze of pain; the whole front of me felt as though it were on fire. I knew, though, in some small portion of my brain that dealt with _survival_ and had remained mostly clear, that I was falling too far; if I hit the ground now, the result would be instant death. So I pried my eyes open, and though everything was a vague blur of darkness and dizzying shapes, I managed to half-focus on something below me and form a single thought:

**_There._**

[o{o}o]

**AN: Sparkly swords! Dr. Phil! Exploding things! . . . What's not to review?**


	14. A Damsel in Distress

Jenny (narrating): _I had cheated death yet __**again.**__ If it weren't for the situation that kept on putting me in harm's way in the first place, I'd almost have called myself lucky._  
**(Excerpt from Chapter 4 of **_**Not What I Had Planned)**_

[o{o}o]

_Last Chapter: The force of the blast threw me backwards and off of the platform. I knew, though, in some small portion of my brain that dealt with __**survival**__ and had remained mostly clear, that I was falling too far; if I hit the ground now, the result would be instant death. So I pried my eyes open, and though everything was a vague blur of darkness and dizzying shapes, I managed to half-focus on something below me and form a single thought:_  
**There**.

**Chapter 13: A Damsel In Distress**

When I came to, it was a slow process, not a single, instantaneous event. I had been in a half-conscious state for several minutes before a low groan escaped from between my lips and I was startled enough by the unexpected noise, coming from _me, _no less, that I actually _realized _that I was awake: I hurt too much not to be. The gashes in my shoulder still hurt, but the pain of that injury paled in comparison to the never-ceasing, inescapable agony that the flesh all over the front of my face, arms, and torso registered. My legs (or lack thereof) remained mercifully unaffected, and my back had been shielded from the blast, but I could hardly bring myself to feel grateful; not with the pain consuming my mind. Unwillingly, I made a quiet whimpering sound, but even opening my mouth that small bit was enough to split my chapped and dry lips, sending trickles of blood down my chin.

I was lying, half curled in the fetal position, on cold stone flagging. The undamaged flesh on my back registered that much, at least. I struggled to hold onto any rational thought (my body was doing its utmost to force my mind back to its predicament, but I was fighting it as best I could) as I woke further, and though —if anything— the pain seemed to actually _increase_, I grew better able to gain control of it, to push it back so that it didn't consume me. When I lifted scorched, raw eyelids to figure out where I was, though, I nearly degenerated into panic again: I couldn't see.

No, that wasn't quite true: I _could_ see, but my vision was so hazy and unfocused that any one object in my line of sight was indistinguishable from the others. Despite myself, a small gasp of distress escaped me; if I couldn't see, I couldn't teleport, and that meant that, wherever I was, it would be almost impossible to escape from. Even with my level of injuries I would have been able to find my way to a fountain, if only I'd had my sight (and thus been able to use my Ring): as it was, though, there was nothing I could do but wait to die.

_Or, you know, you could always speed up the process and put yourself into even __**more**__ pain by crawling around looking for a way out,_ my subconscious suggested.

I might have grimaced if moving my features in any way hadn't hurt so badly. But I knew already that it was a hopeless cause: both my survival, and any possibility that I might actually concede my defeat and 'wait to die'. I was far too stubbo—uh, excuse me, far too _tenacious_ for that.

So I began slowly, shifting to position my arms under me in a way that didn't scrape my damaged flesh against the rough flooring. Immediately I gasped, feeling moisture leak from the corners of my eyes to sting the burnt flesh there, but kept moving nonetheless. _Holy __**armadillos,**__ that hurts!_ Bit by excruciating bit, I forced myself to get to my feet, as my Sand-formed lower body was the only part of me that was functioning normally right now. My body loudly protested the abuse, but I was getting better at ignoring its siren call; my mind felt clear, although later I would realize that it was far more clouded by pain than I ever grasped at the time.

First, I listened: there was the grinding, swishing, tapping, and rumbling that was the myriad of machines above me in the aptly named 'Mechanical Pit', then the incessant rushing noise of the cascades of water —just out of my reach behind the sturdy metal grates that covered them— which powered those machines. When no other noise came, no threat making itself known to my senses (my sword, which luckily hadn't been dislodged in the fall, would do me little good at this point if anything attacked me), I began to move. I stumbled around until I —painfully— encountered a wall (I'd been walking a little too fast, and scraped part of my extended arm), and from then on kept one hand always in contact with the stone, exploring its contours with the heel of my hand, since my fingers felt burnt and brittle—although the fact that I could still feel them at _all_ said good things about their ability to recover. My hand grazed over the wall as I moved until, unexpectedly, the texture changed.

_Metal_, I identified the new material. It was slightly rusted, possibly iron, and I discovered what it was for upon discerning the regular gaps in it and the cool, moist draft of air coming from said gaps, realizing that it was a grate to cover the streams of water coming from above.

I wanted to yell at something, to destroy this abominable construction that was preventing me from reaching the life-giving water that I needed so badly; to do _something_. Instead, I shuffled past it in silence, putting my hand back against the wall when I reached the other side. But—the wall on the other side wasn't there when I reached for it. Cautiously, I extended my arm a bit further, my breath quickening with hope and excitement when I realized that the unaccountable space was a _crack_, albeit a larger one than I was used to (it might more aptly have been called a crevasse): my efforts had paid off after all. For the first time, I allowed myself to hope that maybe, just _maybe_, I could survive this. Well, discounting the fact that I was already dead.

That hope stood me in good stead when I was crawling through the crack, for even the little bit of extra space it had couldn't prevent me _entirely_ from bumping into anything. When I finally pulled myself painfully out the other side, I felt even more raw and scarified than I had before. The crack had felt like it stretched on forever, but I didn't know how much of that had been my longing for it to end—I did observe, though, that the noises of the Mechanical Pit were so muted by distance and walls that I couldn't hear them anymore. Fortifying myself for the task ahead, I started exploring again.

This place was rougher, less carefully shaped than the Mechanical Pit had been. I could have searched for minutes, or for hours: I was living a moment at a time, and so when I change came into my pattern of, _'shuffle—ow, shuffle—ow, bump—__**OW**__',_ it took awhile for me to register it. When it finally did occur to me that there was something different in the atmosphere, I immediately stopped dead, lifting my hand from where it had been lightly brushing against the wall I was exploring and cocking my head slightly to the side in an unconscious listening posture.

First there was the faint, constant _whooshing_ sound that was a blend of all of the noises outside; closer by I could hear echoes on stone of small things moving, the regular thump of my heartbeat, the muted sound of my breath. Behind all of that, though, there was another noise . . . something that I hadn't heard before . . .

_Breathing,_ I realized. _It's the sound of breathing._ But the steady, rhythmic sounds of inhaling and exhaling (coming from behind me and to my right) had a weight, a depth to them that alerted me to the fact that, whatever being was making the noise, it was surely a massive one. A prickle of fear raced through me, putting my every sense on high-alert (and so calling the agony of my injuries into even higher relief), and a thousand worst-case scenarios spilled through my mind until I was arrested by one, one that _wasn't_ so worst-case.

It hurt as much to speak as it did to do anything else. I whispered, my voice rough and cracking: "Dahaka?"

There was a pause, then a rumble of affirmation, and all of the tenseness spontaneously drained from my muscles as I went slack with relief, feeling suddenly exhausted, as though my subconscious was telling me that I didn't need to be so strong anymore. Maybe it was stupid that I wasn't at all afraid of the monolithic black demon, but he'd _never_ attempted to hurt me (had even protected me at times, in fact), and I refused to categorize him as an enemy. There was a saying: _The enemy of my enemy is my friend,_ and I assumed that it was meant to work the other way around, too—_The enemy of my friend is my enemy_—but the Dahaka was certainly Prince's enemy, and I didn't count him the same to me.

My priorities were a little bit messed up, sometimes—my pride was more important to me than it should have been (although the things I took pride in might've been a tad baffling to others). At that moment, though, I didn't give a second thought to throwing any shred of pride and dignity I still had left to the winds: "Help me, please?"

It wasn't quite begging, but it was admitting that I was too weak to help myself, and that was _monumental._

There was a moment of silence, only broken by the noises I had observed earlier, although without my sight I was hyper-aware of each and every sound. Eventually the Dahaka gave a short growl, sounding almost frustrated. **"SseletaF, erutaerc egnarts a era uoy,"** he muttered. **"Uoy pleh lliw I."** _["You are a strange creature, Fateless. . . . I will help you."]_

I jerked, barely choking back a cry of pain, when several warm, rope-like things wrapped around my limbs and lifted my body from the ground. I was panicked for a brief instant, recognizing the sensation as that of the Guardian of the Timeline's vine-feelers pulling me in towards him, but he merely brought me close, near enough that I could feel the heat emanating from him; it set my burns to throbbing, but he didn't absorb me, as I had momentarily dreaded. _Maybe,_ I thought, my mind suddenly fuzzy with the release of strain, _I was right not to fear him._ I sighed, relaxed into the tangled web of vines that cradled me, and allowed my pain to fade away into the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness.

[o{o}o]

"**SseletaF. Pu ekaw. Retaw si ereht."** _["Fateless. Wake up. There is water."]_

Where his first words had failed to penetrate through the pain-induced, feverish haze, the last sentence woke me perhaps more quickly than anything else could. _Water._ I was so keyed up from the very word that it didn't even really register that I'd _understood _when he'd said it. Consciousness was agony, but the promise of healing was worth it.

"Where?" I croaked, squirming slightly in his grip and reaching out my hands to feel for the promised water. My only answer was a sensation of being lowered, then my questing hands touched a liquid surface; my fingers were dripping when I drew them out. I strained eagerly forward, and my bearer wordlessly complied with my tacit wishes, gently laying me down where I could easily reach the pool (it was a pool of some sort, not a fountain—that much was easy enough to deduce, even without my sight) and loosing the grip of his rope-like feelers from where they had been holding me. I crawled forward until my hands touched water once again, and then leaned down to imbibe greedily of the life-giving liquid.

The feeling of energy and warmth inundating my body was almost eclipsed by just the . . . _cessation._ All the pain, all the weakness, all the need to keep an iron grip on my mind and body was gone; vanished as though it had never been there. Even the mental exhaustion that I felt should be present after my ordeal was missing. I released a long, slow sigh and rested my forehead against the whole, undamaged skin of my forearms, almost trembling with relief. It was at that moment that I decided that water was the singular most glorious thing in existence, Spike Beasts were the most demonic creations in the history of anywhere, _ever_, and that whatever Ubisoft underling had contrived the idea for them in his/her warped little brain was deserving of a swift and fiery demise.

"Thank you," I said. There was no way to be sure, of course—I _might've_ somehow survived anyway—but I was pretty darn certain that the Dahaka, Guardian of the Timeline and Prince-hunter extraordinaire, had just saved my life (if that wasn't a contradiction in terms). I turned to look at my rescuer (although if he was my rescuer then that meant that _I _had been the damsel in distress, which was an annoying concept even at the best of times, and this wasn't. The best of times, I mean). In the almost pitch-black of wherever we were (the rock under me was completely raw, uncut, but smoothed by water—and, in fact, the whole atmosphere was just screaming "cave," but I wasn't going to make any assumptions yet), all that was visible of him was a pair of ominously radiant white eyes. The rest of him blended well into the darkness. Altogether he looked very evil and scary-creature-in-the-dark-esque, and it sent a thrill of fear down my spine—but it was a good, comfortable fear, like you get when you're watching a lighting storm from safety—it's powerful, frightening—it could destroy you in an instant, but the fear that you feel is a general sort of fear, rather than a personal one. I knew that the Dahaka wouldn't harm me on purpose. He'd pretty much proved that when he rescued me, hadn't he?

The Dahaka just rumbled in response to my thanks, sounding almost embarrassed (and completely shattering the scary-creature-in-the-dark image). I smiled.

"Where are we?"

A pause, where the brightness of the Guardian of the Timeline's peculiar eyes turned away from me, presumably looking over our surroundings, although it seemed strange that he would not have done so before. I assumed that he could see in the dark, if his glowing eyes were any indication.

"**SsertroF eht woleb era ew,"** he said finally. **"Snrevac era ereht. Demrof yltnecer era emos, dlo era emos. Emit gnol **_**yrev**_** a rof ereh neeb evah eseht." **_["We are below the Fortress. . . . There are caverns. Some are old, some are recently formed. These have been here for a __**very**__ long time."]_

I said slowly, "Well, then . . . how do I get out? I can't—" I choked off the end of the sentence, realizing that I had been responding without thought to what _should_ have been no more than gibberish to me. "Could you repeat that, please?" I requested weakly, more than a tad confused.

He willingly complied, but though I listened carefully, this time it just sounded like Backwardsahaka.

"Drat and armadillos," I muttered, frowning.

A question from the Dahaka, still incomprehensible; I made an educated guess as to the content and responded: "Oh, well . . . It's just that I could've _sworn _that I understood what you were saying for a second there."

"**Kaeps I erehw tnereffid si emiT," **he stated enigmatically. _["Time is different where I speak."]_

I rolled my eyes heavenward, shifting around so that I could sit facing him. "What's that supposed to mean? That my brain has to be working backwards to hear you or something?"

"**Yltcaxe ton. Tnemom eht ni gninetsil era uoy taht tegrof ot deen ylno uoy."** _["Not exactly. You only need to forget that you are listening in the moment."]_

"Yeah, okay, sure," I agreed sarcastically. "Cryptic Dahakalish utterances. I just love those." _Forget that I'm listening in the moment. Darn, if only I'd known this before. _

The Dahaka just stood there like a silent sentinel, his eyes glowing creepily (as per usual), and my thoughts turned to what I was going to do next: how to get back to Prince? Obviously I didn't want to lead the Dahaka straight to him, though . . . _That_ would be a recipe for disaster. Especially since we were in the past, and the Dahaka still hadn't figured out Prince's ability to travel through the times. Maybe I should ask him—

_Wait . . ._

Silence.

"I was just hearing you again, wasn't I."

The Dahaka made a noise that sounded distinctly like thunder; I was pretty sure it was his laugh. I chuckled myself, a bit, standing. An occasional understanding was better than none at all, no matter how frustrating it might be. With my luck, though, chances were that now I'd be thinking about it exhaustively, and thus be clueless as to what he was saying again. It was like trying not to think about a hot pink elephant: it was _impossible_ to succeed on purpose.

I took several quick steps forward, until I was standing close to the Dahaka (but not too close. I wasn't _extremely_ short, but a few inches more or less doesn't matter much when you're comparing yourself to something that monumentally _huge:_ if I'd gone any closer, I would've gotten a crick in my neck from craning to see his face (or, actually, his eyes). I spoke my thoughts: "So what now?"

He said: **"Evael tsum I neht tub, thgil eht ot uoy ediug lliw I. ot dnetta ot sgniht rehto . . . evah I."** _["I will guide you to the light, but then I must leave. I have . . . other things to attend to."] _

'_Other things'. Prince-hunting things, you mean._ I didn't say this out loud. It occurred to me that his talk of 'guiding me to the light' sounded like some sort of weird mystical cult, but I wisely decided not to mention that, either (I was pretty sure that when he'd said 'light', he'd meant it literally). Instead I conceded, "That's fair." It was more than fair, actually: he was under no obligation to help me at _all._ I owed him my life. . . . Which wasn't all that fun. I didn't like feeling so indebted to someone (especially someone who would like nothing more than to kill one of my friends), even if I _had_ decided that that person wasn't my enemy after all.

[o{o}o]

**AN: *sings* Haaaiil the conquering heerrooo! What **_**does**_** the Dahaka do when he's not off chasing Prince, anyway? I'm assuming he looks for him, although why he would be looking down in some creepy dark cave only the mysterious Script-Gods know . . . *cough* So what thinks you? Reviews are love! **

**~Killer Zebra**


	15. END OF THE WORLD SWITCH: DO NOT TOUCH

**AN: Crap! I meant to post this yesterday, but I sort of forgot… Well, here you go! Thanks to all of the fantastic peoples who reviewed, and enjoy! :)**

[o{o}o]

Prince (to Farah): _"You know, not __**everything**__ is a trap."  
_**(Excerpt from Chapter 19 of **_**Not What I Had Planned;**_** originally from **_**Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time)**_

[o{o}o]

_Last Chapter: The Dahaka was under no obligation to help me. I owed him my life. . . . Which wasn't all that fun. I didn't like feeling so indebted to someone (especially someone who would like nothing more than to kill one of my friends), even if I __**had**__ decided that that person wasn't my enemy after all._

**Chapter 14: END OF THE WORLD SWITCH: DO NOT TOUCH.**

There. Light. A thin, diffused shaft, true, but light all the same. I hurried forward, past the massive black silhouette (not the capitalized kind) that was the Dahaka, and when I came around the next bend in the tunnel there was a rockfall there, covering all but a small gap in the top, the source of the light . . . maybe big enough for me to fit through.

Apparently the Dahaka thought so, because when I turned to thank him again he was gone. I stopped for a moment, squinting to make sure that I hadn't just somehow missed him in the dim lighting, but he remained conspicuously absent. Lost in thought as I continued staring into the darkness, I absentmindedly tucked my now hopelessly tangled (and a bit singed, at the front) locks behind my ears. I really needed to cut my hair if I was going to be doing this type of stuff often, or at least find something to tie it back with. Keeping it long was more trouble than it was worth, and since it always seemed to end up in this abysmal condition anyway, aesthetic appeal wasn't really a factor. I briefly considered just hacking it off with my sword, but my vanity wouldn't quite allow that just yet. _You survive, _I thought murderously at the bird's nest that rested on top of my head. _. . . For now. _

Speaking of appearances (and singed things in particular), how had I held up under the latest assault by Spike Beasts, caverns and co.? _If only the water-magic also included an instant grooming . . . _Shaking away the thought, I turned so that what little light there was shone directly onto me, then looked down at myself.

_. . . Oh dear._ I almost winced. As ever, my Sand-formed bottom half had remained completely unscathed, but my top hadn't been quite so fortunate. My black tank-top, which up to this point had remained mostly intact, was now not only a shredded and charred piece of nothing which barely covered all the necessary bits, but liberally spattered with bloodstains. _My _bloodstains, unfortunately. My skin, though healed, still looked like somebody had had a jolly good time painting it with mud and—other, disquieting substances. I'd felt pretty filthy before, but only now had I turned my full attention to the matter, and suddenly I _really_ wanted a bath. Heck, a tidal wave would do.

Resolving myself both to find myself some more appropriate clothing and to clean myself a bit before putting it on (if only by using the remains of my old shirt to wipe myself down with water from a fountain), I clambered up onto the rocks of the blockade and experimentally poked my head into the hole there (it was too deep for me to be able to see out the other side). Well . . . my shoulders would be a tight fit, but the gap was _just _big enough. _Yay for weirdly consistent convenience._

The rocks that formed the blockade were roughly split and jagged, so by the time I emerged from the other side I was pretty well littered with shallow cuts and painful abrasions. This was a tad bothersome, but in comparison to what I'd been going through before it was _nothing_, and I wasn't about to complain.

. . . Correction: I wasn't about to complain about the _discomfort._ My situation, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter. The Dahaka had assumed, just as I had, that the light coming through the gap in the rockfall was from sunlight: we'd both been wrong. Instead, it was from several torches, which were strategically positioned all around the chamber that I now found myself in (although 'chamber' was a loose term). It was large but not huge, vaguely hexagonal, and the stone of the walls and floor was hardly shaped at all: it was obviously manmade (or Sand creature made), but almost as rough and unfinished as the caverns I had just left. There was a dark archway in the wall furthest from me, directly across from the opening I had come through (apparently it had been a similar door, once, but had either collapsed or been blocked). The bad news was that I wasn't out of the woods yet; the _good_ news was that I had the means to _get_ out of the 'woods', in the form of one of the ever-burning torches, which by now I had deduced were somehow enchanted to never go out. One of them would be perfectly serviceable to light my way out of this place, although whether I'd be able to find my way out even _with_ the light had yet to be seen.

The centerpiece of the room was what really excited me, though: a pool. _Water_. As in, something I could _wash_ in. It looked clear and clean, but it was deep enough that I could barely see the bottom. _Perfect._

It was with something like glee that I unceremoniously stripped and stepped into the pool, my pleasure at the prospect of being _clean_ undaunted even by the icy temperature of the water. All the same, though I scrubbed myself within an inch of my life, until I was as clean as I could get without soap of any kind (the small amount of sediment at the bottom of the pool wasn't any good for scrubbing-sand—I checked), I did it quickly: with no sun to warm them, these underground passages were _cold._ That thought, though, made me realize that it wasn't quite as cold as it might have been. _I must be pretty close to the surface, then._ Cheered by the realization, I managed to work up the courage to step out of the water and expose my dripping wet skin to the cold air. At least my lower half remained as unresponsive as ever. I'd thought that the Sand imitation felt just like an ordinary pair of legs: now I realized that I'd been wrong. It was almost true, but for the fact that they never responded, never reacted. I could feel them, but _they _couldn't feel any pain, cold, damp—they just weren't _real,_ and it showed after a while.

I got as much of the water out my drenched hair as I could, then turned reluctantly to eye the scrap of tatterdemalion black cloth that I'd discarded previously. Now that I was clean, the idea of putting the shirt back on, even after I'd washed it, seemed repulsive. I didn't really have another choice, though, so after giving it a thorough scrubbing in the pool and wringing it out afterwards, I donned the still-soggy remains of the garment. It was time to go.

I turned to my left and slid the torch there out of its wall-bracket. It still burned, but when I touched it, it was immediately obvious that it had been there for a _long _time: it had a thick coating of gray dust, and the wood of the haft was dry and brittle under my palm. I was impressed.

"Whoa," I said aloud, holding the torch away from my body and eyeing it. "What are you running on, the Energizer Bunny?"

The torch didn't answer, and, shrugging, I made for the exit—but something caught my eye.

Blue. Deep, vivid, cerulean blue cloth, bright enough that it was a wonder that I had somehow overlooked it before. It was pooled in liquid folds in a shadowed corner, which might have explained my oversight. I approached cautiously; as I got closer the color seemed to tone down a bit, and when I finally reached out and fingered it I couldn't decide what material it was; it was very soft, but the weave was rather loose; typical, I supposed, since it must have been hand-woven. Best of all, though it was long, it seemed to be only about a foot wide, like a scarf: it would be simple enough to wrap it around myself in some semblance of a shirt.

It didn't even occur to me to think it odd that it didn't have even a speck of dust on its deep blue folds. I grasped the edge in my hands and pulled it up—but it had been covering something.

Curious, I moved my torch closer to the exposed etchings. The slightly raised stone here had been shaped until it was as smooth and glossy as glass. The smooth area was a hexagon, and mirroring each of the six sides of the figure was a shape, engraved into the smooth rock: on top there was a curved, nearly round shape, like a pared circle, deep and narrow enough that I couldn't see the bottom; next, a bigger circle, this one shallow; then an odd shape, like a rounded triangle, but with varying depths; next was another circle, but deeper than the first, and with projections at the top and bottom; then a straight line, almost six inches long and perhaps a quarter-inch thick, with slight divots at each end; last came a shape that I recognized: a thin, curved half-circle, the nadir of which had a diminutive half-sphere. The exact shape that my Ring would make, if it suddenly got the ability to melt stone and I punched a wall with it.

Faced with such a strange sight, I did what any sensible person would do: I took off my shirt. Then I wrapped the blue material around my chest twice and then tied it behind my neck in a sort of awkward halter-top. It was bulky, but it worked to cover all the necessary bits, no matter what it had been covering before.

I stared at the figures for a long moment before snorting and turning away. I'd have to be insane to actually _do_ anything, even if one of the shapes _did_ look like it matched my Ring. And the top shape looked like it would fit the Dagger . . . and the one next to it was the shape of the Amulet . . . and the one after that might've fitted the head of the Staff. The others I didn't recognize. I picked up my torch from where I had set it when I was changing my shirt and headed for the gaping darkness of the archway.

I reached it; slowed; stopped. The torch blazed on, oblivious to its circumstances, and my grip tightened on the haft.

I would have to be _insane._ It would be like pushing the button that said in bold letters: _END OF THE WORLD SWITCH: DO NOT TOUCH._ Human nature, maybe, but still undeniably _stupid._

I turned around and went back, trying to rationalize my actions as I did so. _There's six slots for six Artifacts, and I'm only triggering __**one,**_I reasoned. _Nothing's actually going to __**happen. **__Probably nothing would happen anyway: this room obviously hasn't been disturbed for a very long time, and whatever's down here has probably been inactive for so long that it doesn't work anymore. _What was I even _expecting?_ A broken-down clock? Pushing the questions aside,I tugged the Ring off of my finger as I walked, and as soon as I reached the plaque I crouched down and inserted the object into its proper place, as though not to give myself a chance to change my mind. As I had suspected it would, the Ring fit perfectly.

I waited, tense; nothing happened. For several minutes I sat there, crouched, too apprehensive to move a muscle. Nothing still happened. Eventually I sighed and relaxed, lowering myself so that I was sprawled on the ground. "Well," I commented to the air, "that was anticlimactic." I reached for the Ring, pulled it out of its slot, and slid it back onto my finger.

Naturally, this was the final trigger that was needed. There was a mere instant of charged silence, then—the world turned upside-down. The air shimmered and sang: I saw blue, blue like the material I now wore as a shirt; I _heard_ blue, although before that point I would have said that that was impossible: blue was a color, you didn't _hear_ it. All the same, I did. It only lasted for a few seconds, but it those few seconds were _bizarre, _utterly unsettling. And I felt every ounce of the immense stupidity that had gone into my actions.

When the world finally turned right side-up again, I was flat on my back and had a painful lump on the back of my head from when I'd fallen backwards. I wasted no time in scrambling to my feet, sending a glance at the smooth place in the floor behind me before realizing that it was unchanged and turning to the center of the room.

There was someone standing at the edge of the pool, looking down into it and paying no attention to me whatsoever. Somehow I couldn't believe that it was because the individual didn't know I was there. The person's features were pale, clean-cut, streamlined—almost completely genderless. After a moment of observation, though, I decided that she—well, was a 'she'. It was easier than referring to her as that-person-who-I'm-not-sure-of-the-gender-of, anyway. She had wide, flat cheekbones, a broad mouth, and a sharp chin. Her fine, straight hair was a dark blonde, and pulled back somehow—I couldn't see what tied it. Her clothing was loose, hiding whatever curves she may have possessed—a tunic of the same blue as the top I now wore, and loose beige breeches. Her feet were clad in light, ankle-height leather boots. Across her back was a long wooden shaft, at least six feet long, to one end of which a broad, half-moon blade was attached, and it looked far too heavy for such a slender, lithe person to wield—and completely plain, unadorned: the complete opposite of my elaborate sword. I'd never actually seen a glaive, but this weapon matched the description.

The woman's appearance was absolutely ordinary—that is, that's what I thought until she turned to look at me: her eyes were the bluest of blues, an endless blue that was impossible to describe, because it could never exist in an ordinary, mortal world. No matter how plain, how mundane the rest of her seemed, there was no doubt when I saw her eyes that she was _anything_ but ordinary. As if the circumstances of her arrival hadn't tipped me off.

I wondered what I'd done; what I'd set loose; what I'd do now. But she looked at me, and her face was kind; I thought that maybe I hadn't triggered the apocalypse after all.

"I owe you my thanks," she said. "This place has been my prison for long ages." Her voice was low, clear—hardly remarkable, although her manner of speech was oddly stilted.

I focused on a point over her left shoulder; looking into her eyes for too long made me feel dizzy. Warily, I replied: "I'd say 'you're welcome'—but I'm kind of wondering if I should've _left_ you to be imprisoned for _more_ long ages. Who are you? Why shouldn't I put you right back where you came from?" My questions were sharp, fierce, but it was all bravado: I'd released something that I had no control over, and now I was dealing with the consequences.

She smiled a little. "I am weakened beyond imagining, girl," she said in a soft voice, lowering her lids to look at me from beneath golden lashes. "Vastly weakened. I have been trapped for years far beyond your mortal reckoning, and time has taken its toll on me."

I jerked, startled, when with no warning whatsoever, the woman vanished; there was suddenly a high, ringing tone and a flash of blue from behind me. I spun around. She was there . . . but her small, tired smile had transformed into a grin, exposing perfectly white, perfectly even teeth.

I'd thought that her face was kind: now, though, it became obvious that the friendliness had been merely a façade. Still looking at me, she chuckled; it was a perfectly ordinary sound, filled with genuine amusement. Somehow I'd expected it to be as unearthly as she was. "I am weak, yes. But I am not so weak that a mere mortal will pose any problems for me to dispose of. Feel honored, human girl: your death throes will provide the sustenance of a goddess." A pale hand reached for me—but I was already gone, teleporting beyond her and sliding my scimitar from its sheath in a quick movement even as I traveled.

"_Oh,"_ I said in a knowing tone of voice as she, just as startled as I had been by the similar move on her part, whirled to face me. "You're another one of those 'honorable death' people, are you?" I sighed. "Allow me to reiterate this: dying with honor is all well and good, but _I'll_ be the one to define what I'm honored by. Savvy?"

Her eyes narrowed. "I see. That is how you released me: you are an Artifact-bearer." Her voice was almost casual, sounding only slightly annoyed. "This may prove to be slightly more difficult than I had anticipated."

"Wow," I said dryly. "Flattering." Silently, I vowed to make things as 'difficult' as possible for her. If she was as weakened as she said, though, and the teleporting was all she had up her sleeve—then I might actually have a chance. _And if she's a goddess, I'll eat my uncle's hat. I don't even have an uncle. _

Eerie blue eyes suddenly blinked. "Is that—" she sounded incredulous, "—is your sword _sparkling?"_

I glared. "No. It's not. And even if it was, I fail to see how the sparkly-ness—or lack thereof—of my sword is an issue." She looked doubtfully at me. I sighed. "Can't you just attack me or something?"

She obliged and made the first move, reaching up, drawing out her glaive, and swinging it at me in one smooth movement. Foolishly, perhaps, I'd expected a pause of some sort, so the attack came as a surprise: I was barely able to bring my scimitar up to block the blow, and I'd been right about her weapon's weight, if not of its wielder's strength: the blow staggered me, nearly sending me to my knees. I resolved to dodge blows from that point on. The next time she swung at me I teleported to behind her, hoping to strike before she could recover her balance from the blow—but she was too fast for me.

This bloodless battle went on for several minutes in the same manner—i.e. me losing miserably but managing not to get killed. Oddly enough, though, I was the one who drew the first blood. I ducked under one of her swings rather than dodging away, and a wild flail with my sword's edge resulted in a slit and stain of red across her formerly spotless blue tunic where it covered her ribs. It did me no good, though: it only made her angry, motivating her to move faster, hit harder.

But panic, I discovered, was also a perfectly acceptable motivator. I moved faster; I hit harder.

I'm not sure when I started retreating. All I knew was that after a time, the only light came from the flash of our teleporting, the glint of unearthly cerulean eyes—like fighting in the flicker of a strobe light. It would've made for fantastic filming, but in reality all it meant was that both of us swung wild more often than not. At least I wasn't the only one at a disadvantage.

I measured time by the wounds I received—first, a slash high on my arm, almost to the shoulder; then a broken pinkie on my left hand, where I'd had to grab onto my sword with both hands to strop an unavoidable blow and the edge of her weapon's haft had crushed the digit. The wooden shaft should've sliced like butter when it struck my sword's edge; it didn't even have a scratch. _Of course not._ When my slow but constant retreat was blocked by my finally running into a dead end (although it continued in an upward shaft, which actually had some faint light coming from it), I received several more wounds in quick succession, one of them a fairly serious tear right above my hip bone. Luckily it missed hitting anything vital, but it was still painful and bled like crazy; I was growing weaker all the time from blood loss. I did get some of my own back, though: her left sleeve was soaked in maroon liquid from where I'd gotten the underside of her arm in an awkward, unplanned but strong blow. This made it harder for her to wield her glaive with both hands, which helped to counterbalance the weakness that crept further through my muscles with every moment.

But she had been alive for a long time, and she was very, very smart. When I saw her move to attack again I preempted the incoming strike and dodged—discovering too late that it was only a feint. She darted forward and grabbed onto my sword, unmindful of where it sliced into the skin of her palm— blue light flashed and she reappeared several feet away, still with my scimitar in her hands.

The world went dark again as the light from her teleport faded, all except for a faint illumination coming from the shaft above. For a moment there was absolute silence; I could feel my empty hands trembling. Then there was a _'whoosh'_ing sound from my left me as a blade sliced through the air: I dove away, which was perhaps overkill, but I wanted to make sure I was out of harm's way.

I was weaponless, defenseless, and being beat to a _pulp _by some sort of wannabe-goddess, and I had no one to blame for any of this but myself. But I'd done what I could to stop her unaided: the responsibility for her release rested on me and me alone, but I couldn't defeat her the same way. There was only one thing I could do:

_Run._

[o{o}o]

**Muse: "DUN-DUN-DUN-DUUUUN!"  
OPOD: *swoons*  
Har-har-har. Very funny. Yes, I am aware that the whole scenario is lame . . . Sorry. I felt like there needed to be a real antagonist of some sort, since I'd basically gotten rid of all threat from the Dahaka and Melon-boobs. And Jenny did something stupid! Congrats, Jen!  
Jenny: "Um . . . Thanks?"  
Yeah. So, what dost thou thinkest of this chapter? I'm curious: does anyone have any guesses as to what will happen next? If you guess right (or close enough to right), I'll give a sneak-peek of the next chapter! *bribebribe* ;)**

**~Killer Zebra**


	16. A Helping Hand

**AN: Well, no one guessed quite right. The one who came the closest was WereCatsRule, but I guess you'll all see! I have a question, though. Why is it that **_**every time **_**I write author's notes I get the urge to spontaneously burst out singing, **_**"Blinded by the light!"**_** I DON'T UNDERSTAND! WHY? *sits down in tragic confusion*  
OPOD: ***coughs*  
**What?  
OPOD: ***points at Muse, who is grinning***  
MUSE! I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!  
Muse: **"Um, um, WAIT! You have to thank the reviewers!"  
**… Right. Thanks for reviewing, you epic examples of awesomeness! … Ready, Muse?  
Muse: **"… Crap."

[o{o}o]

Raya (regarding the not-Lucan): _"This __**thing **__is an abomination. Destroy it."_  
**(Excerpt from Chapter 21 of **_**Not What I Had Planned)**_

[o{o}o]

_Last chapter: I was weaponless, defenseless, and being beaten to a __**pulp**__ by some sort of freakish monster, and I had no one to blame for any of this but myself. But I'd done what I could to stop her unaided: the responsibility for her release rested on me and me alone, but I couldn't defeat her the same way. There was only one thing I could do:  
__**Run.**_

**Chapter 15: A Helping Hand**

I fled in the only direction I could: _up,_ towards the light that was only barely discernible. I couldn't see the top, yet—no, not even close, but there were enough odd outcroppings and uneven places in the walls of the shaft that I could teleport in stages, and enough light coming down from what I hoped was the outside world that I could _see_ these. I teleported rapidly, hardly pausing in between (especially when my landing point was particularly precarious), knowing that my pursuer wouldn't be far behind: neither of our abilities was exactly suited to sneaky escapes.

When I finally came out of the chasm, though, into blessed, _natural_ light, I did pause briefly: I had come out at the very outskirts of the Mystic Caves; a jagged hole in the wall to my right led to the Mechanical Tower—the Activation Room, to be precise. I felt a flicker of hope: here, back in more familiar regions, there was a chance that I might get help. Maybe together Prince and I could defeat the wannabe-goddess.

_But she still has my sword, _I remembered, teleporting across a long break in the hallway flooring and listening to the high pitched ringing from behind me as the wannabe-goddess gave chase. I didn't waste time running: it was straight teleport to teleport, and I could only pray that one of them would be the one that evaded my pursuer. But I was torn: if she lost me then I would also lose her, and I didn't want to be responsible for the horrors she could work now that she was free. I knew instinctively that my only opportunity to destroy the abomination that I had unleashed would be now, before she had the opportunity to regain whatever terrible powers she had in her arsenal.

Almost unwillingly, I slowed somewhat in my headlong flight, allowing myself a fleeting glance over the shoulder at the wannabe-goddess, who held my weapon in one hand and her own in the other. She was rather far back (not that that mattered much when the mode of transportation was teleporting), and still glowing blue from her most recent teleport. Her eyes met mine for a split instant: she smiled. And I was gone again.

The adrenaline rushed through my veins, going unused because I was teleporting, rather than running, but my heart still raced and my breath came in short gasps.

_**There,**_I thought, focusing my gaze far below, on the point where Prince first entered the Activation Room.

Apparently, though, I was predictable. Even as the brazen tone of my teleporting rang out, it blended with the high, sweet ringing of my pursuer. When I appeared on the wooden platform, she was there as well. I might have escaped, all the same, but I wasted precious moments turning to search for a point to escape to, and by that point it was too late: something hard and blunt smashed with mind-numbing agony across both my eyes (most likely the haft of her glaive), and I let out a choked cry, staggering backwards.

The wannabe-goddess knew to aim for my weakness: for the second time in—actually I didn't know how long, but far less time than was healthy!— I had lost my sight. Stars burst before my eyes, and I knew that the flesh around them was already swelling, so that even had they remained functional they would've been blocked. I halfheartedly lashed out with my fists at the empty air in front of me before slumping to my knees, an odd composure coming over me.

Facing death got easier, after the first couple times.

"Your death will be swift," her voice said from behind me, sounding almost kind. "Would you prefer it be by my weapon or yours?"

I mustered up a smile. "You know, I always wanted to die of something cool, like overconsumption of chocolate-covered coffee beans. Death by wannabe-goddess is so _unoriginal."_

She released a soft hiss: honest to goodness _hissage._ My smile became genuine, even as I knew that my words had just ensured that I wouldn't have the dubious pleasure of deciding whether I was killed by sword or glaive.

But I held up a hand, remembering something. "Wait!"

There was a pause. "Yes?"

_I __**did**__ want go out memorably._

"BATMAN!"

I heard an irritated growl and the sound of a blade's edge slicing through air— but it never struck its target. There was a startled cry from the wannabe-goddess and something warm and solid cannoned into my back, throwing me forward. My temple collided with a narrow wooden beam, bringing darkness.

[o{o}o]

Someone was touching me. Fingers pressed against skin of my neck, just under the jaw—_Checking my pulse point,_ I deduced rationally. Then there was a sigh from above me. "How do you always manage to get yourself into these things?" a curiously hollow, echoing voice questioned quietly.

_That_ woke me up quick. I writhed in protest (ignoring the jolts of pain that this sent shooting through my head) and tried to yell, but it ended up being more of a squeak as my abused vocal chords refused to make more noise than that on such short notice. A sort of hiss came from the person above me; his hands withdrew quickly, and I allowed myself to calm somewhat, going quiet and prying my eyes open just a crack.

As I'd anticipated, I could see little: just a vague grey shape above me that stood out against the brighter background, but wavered so much that any attempt I made to focus on it was frustrated. "Who are you?" I tried to ask, but it came out more like, _H ah who?_ I tried again: "Who are you?" There. That was better.

He didn't speak for a moment. ". . . You can't see me?" His voice was puzzled, but it still retained that curious echo—and I suddenly knew the answer to my question.

"You're the Sandwraith," I stated in realization, trying to sit up. "You're—" I almost said, _You're Prince,_ but stopped myself: he wasn't the Prince. Not _my_ Prince, anyway. But that disturbance, right before I'd been rendered insensible— that must've been him. He'd saved my life.

He said nothing, confirming my deduction. We both waited in silence for a time until the throbbing in my head grew too much to ignore, and I rasped abruptly: "What do you want? I'm grateful that you saved me and all, but I'm kind of blind and crippled right now, so unless you happen to miraculously be able to cure me, I have more important things to do than sit here waiting for you to get around to saying whatever you're going to say." It had occurred to me that if I followed the pattern of past experience, it probably wasn't a good idea to spend a prolonged amount of time in the Sandwraith's company: I had a sad record of growing spontaneously attached to anyone who wasn't utterly loathsome. Even Kaileena, who (being the enemy of my 'friend', A.K.A. all things Prince/Farah) wasn't exactly my best buddy, had managed to make her way into my . . . tolerance, at least. I was already going to regret the necessity of the Sandwraith's death: no need to make it worse.

My words prompted him to speak: "I have need of haste as well. There is a fountain near here, up the stairs to your right—can you reach it?" His tone was slightly cool, but it couldn't mask the genuine concern underneath. _Drat and armadillos. I knew it._ It had been inevitable, though: he'd saved my life back there, and I was going to repay him by letting him go to his death. I didn't have another choice, though: it was either this Prince or the other, and the second was _not_ an option I would accept.

"I'll be fine," I said, perhaps more brusquely than was warranted. Even virtually blind, his directions should be easy enough to follow. "Go. _Go,_" I insisted when he continued to hesitate. He stood wordlessly, but to my surprise, something small and circular was pressed into my palm, the metal warmed from its previous holder. I hadn't even noticed that the Ring was absent from its usual place on the index finger of my left hand.

"I had to . . . borrow this," he said, his voice inscrutable. "The Sand creature's similar ability proved troublesome. I apologize, but I could not ask your permission, as you weren't conscious at the time." The last part sounded suspiciously dry, and I dipped my head slightly, hiding the smile that tugged at the corners of my lips as I replaced the Ring on its proper digit.

_No, I hate you forever. I'd rather have died, _I thought sarcastically. I considered correcting his labeling the wannabe-goddess as a Sand creature (I didn't think she was), but he was already leaving.

I waited until the sound of his retreating footsteps had faded, then rolled until I was supporting myself on my elbows; from there I slowly straightened to my knees, then shuffled in the direction that the Sandwraith had indicated, arms outreaching, until my questing hands encountered the stairs. These I ascended (obviously), and once at the landing at the top it only took a little exploration to discover the fountain that the Sandwraith had spoken of. Grabbing onto the fountain's rim to pull myself to my feet, I drank.

_I'm never going to take sight for granted again, _I vowed silently as the power of the healing water surged through my veins. But there was a vague thought hovering somewhere at the edges of my traitorous subconscious that sounded something like, _Or at least not until next time._

Rolling my eyes at the fickle nature of my mind, I glanced down and straightened my makeshift cerulean top. I'd gone through a lot of trouble for the dratted thing: the least it could do was _hang_ straight, and maybe be a little less blue. Speaking of blue . . .

Cautiously, I headed back down the stairs. I really had no particular wish to discover the dead body of the wannabe-goddess—but I _did _need my scimitar back, and all evidence pointed to the fact that they would be together. A sigh of relief escaped me when I reached the bottom of the stairs and discovered the place where she had died—but not her body, only her glaive and my sword. Either she had fallen over the edge of the platform, or she was a Sand creature (or something similar) after all, and her body had dissolved upon her demise. Our two weapons were on opposite sides of the platform: I guessed that she had dropped mine when Prince showed up, so that she would have both hands to wield her glaive.

I retrieved the sparkling weapon and, after grimacing and scraping most of the crusted blood off, replaced it in its sheath; but my mind was elsewhere. There was something tickling the edges of my consciousness, trying to make itself known— something that I was forgetting. However, it remained frustratingly elusive. I turned and began traveling in the direction the Sandwraith had gone—and realization suddenly struck. I was in the second section of the Mechanical Tower, the Activation Room, but if I had seen the _Sandwraith _here . . . then that meant that he was now on his way back to Central Hall, and more time had passed while I was unconscious than I would have guessed. If I wanted to make it back to Central Hall in time to intercept Prince, I would have to hurry.

My steps quickened a bit, but I took a moment to feel a flicker of satisfaction at being able to actually _see_ where I was going, and that for once my body wasn't complaining at any hint of movement. I moved quickly, activating the pressure-plate at the top of the stairs and teleporting through the traps on the other side of the gate there, but I knew that I didn't have to run: the huge leaps I could make with my teleporting ability would more than make up for not running like my tail was on fire (not that I had a tail. An Artifact that allowed me to teleport, a lower body that was a Sand-vortex, and a sparkly sword, but no tail).

When I came to the end of the trap-littered passage that led from the Activation Room to the Mechanical Pit I teleported straight to the wooden platform far below, in the center of the room. I actually took the time to use the ladder in the hole in the center of that, climbing down to the lower platform rather than just teleporting. This was where the whole cavern interlude had started: where those horrid Spike-beasts had first exploded me off into oblivion. "Nasty little buggers."_ I've always wanted to say that . . . _

I turned my gaze to the spinning fan-mechanism, timing my teleport so I wouldn't be hit: _**There.**_

Golden light surged through my veins and exploded outward, the ever-present side-effect of my teleporting. I would've been dead many times over if it weren't for the ability, and I was well aware of this. But still . . . if I was honest, it still sometimes creeped me out. It just wasn't _natural_ . . . but then again, I was becoming more and more convinced by the moment that my definition of "natural" needed to be radically adjusted if I was going to be spending any more time in this crazy world.

I paused briefly on the other side of the spinning blades to drink from the fountain there, although I didn't really need it. _Better safe than sorry, _I reasoned, not really caring. I had more important things in mind: I was getting closer to Central Hall, and I still hadn't spotted the Sandwraith. I trotted over to the drop-off at the far end of the room and fixed my eyes on the ground below, thinking, _**There.**_ From there it was out to the oversized terrace and then up to the wooden, half-circle balcony. The weapons scattered over the floor here gave evidence of the Sandwraith's recent passage; he must've taken out the Keepers that were usually stationed here. I ran through the room, up the stairs on the other side, quickly teleported down into the hall there, and then waited impatiently while my weight slowly pulled down the lever that triggered the gate mechanism. I teleported through the gate as soon as there was a sufficient gap, then utilized my ability again to avoid the traps on the other side. And I was . . . there.

I stood in the doorway far above the floor of Central Hall and saw that, thanks to the shortcuts I had taken, I had arrived just behind the Sandwraith. Even as I looked on, he vaulted his way down the levels of stone towards the bottom of the Hall. I teleported to one of the lower blocks of stone myself, where I had a good view of the proceedings, but decided to stay safely out of reach: I knew exactly what happened here. I would approach Prince _after_ the Guardian of the Timeline had taken the Sandwraith version of him, rather than risk being caught in the crossfire. I didn't think that the Dahaka would harm me on purpose, but accidents happened.

Prince ran forward, but before he could jump across the gap in the floor in front of the archway that led to the Hourglass Chamber, the entire Hall (excepting the outer edges) suddenly darkened, painted in shades of gray. The Dahaka leaped from locations unknown, landing between Prince and the archway with an earth-shaking impact that could be felt even from where I stood.

The royal skidded to a halt, then did an abrupt about-face, sprinting in the other direction, but this time he was stopped by the sudden appearance of the Sandwraith. "I don't have time for this," he snarled. He charged forward again, and for a moment the two alternate versions of the same person were merely feet apart. I waited for the Wraith to step forward; I waited for the Dahaka to choose.

I waited in vain.

"I am sorry," said the Sandwraith, vaulting backwards and out of reach of the black demon.

I watched, frozen with disbelief and horror, as the writhing black tentacles shot out of the Dahaka's chest, claiming Prince's arms and torso and pulling him inexorably towards his doom.

"_No!"_ I screamed, hardly aware of my own actions. The scream drew Prince's horror- and fear-filled gaze, though. His eyes met mine, and they were confused, betrayed; accusing. I hadn't warned him.

_I didn't know,_ I wanted to explain, but my lips wouldn't move, and then it was too late.

I watched him die.

[o{o}o]

**AN: Ha! I bet you weren't expecting **_**that! **_**MUAHAHAHA! MUAHAHAHA! MUAHA— !  
*is trampled my stampede of enraged Prince fans*  
OPOD: **". . . Burble?"**  
Muse: ***cough* "What he means to say is—"**  
OPOD: **"Grrrr." *glares***  
Muse: **". . . Yeah. Review."

**~Killer Zebra**


	17. Prince, Himself, and Phil

**AN: Erm. Hi. I meant to post this on the 29****th****, but I was busy being in a car for 9 hours. Anywho, many thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! It's good to hear your opinions. … OPOD says thanks too! Right, OPOD?  
****OPOD: ***leans over to mutter something to Muse*  
**Muse: **"Ahem. The Omniscient Plecostomus of Doom is unavailable for comment at this time."

[o{o}o]

Jenny (to Prince): _"We won't remember. When you turn back Time, you're the only one who will have any memories of this happening. Farah and I— we won't even remember ever meeting you."  
_**(Excerpt from Chapter 21 of **_**Not What I Had Planned)**_

[o{o}o]

_Last Chapter: I watched him die._

**Chapter 16: Prince, Himself, and Phil**

_Gone._ _He's_ _gone._

Somehow I was on the main strip of flooring in Central Hall, walking silently towards the gap that the Dahaka had disappeared into after taking Prince. I must've teleported there, although I had no recollection of doing so. Each step I took felt sluggish, weighted; like I was walking through deep water. Eventually I reached the edge of the break and stopped there, standing with my arms hanging limply at my sides, looking down into the abyss.

A hand touched my shoulder; I didn't bother to shake it away.

"I'm here, Jenny," said the Sandwraith with uncharacteristic gentleness. But that wasn't right, was it? He wasn't the Sandwraith anymore. He was back to his true form: Prince, but not _my_ Prince.

"I know," I responded tiredly. "_You're_ here. He's not."

A sigh came from behind me. "Jenny . . . you know it's me," he coaxed.

"No," I said. Then again, more forcefully: "_No._ You're not him." The shock was wearing off, replaced by fear— searing, icy loss and _anger_—he'd _left me alone here—_and all at once I just needed to _escape._ From this awful place where I'd witnessed the unthinkable happen, from the feeble attempts of the imposter to comfort me, and, worst of all, from the temptation to believe what he was saying—that the Sandwraith and the Prince really were one and the same, and that 'my' Prince's death had been nothing more than a placeholder, a representation of a fate fulfilled in the Timeline.

"Let _go_ of me," I snarled suddenly, spinning around and violently knocking the former Wraith's hand away from my shoulder. He took a step back, obviously surprised, and before he could move to stop me I brushed past him and dashed away, towards the exit at the other end of the Hall.

"Jenny! Wait!" he called. But my intentions were fixed; I shot through the gate out of the Hall as though the fate of chocolate-covered coffee beans depended on it, teleported past the traps there, and the Wraith-Prince was left far behind.

I traveled on autopilot, hardly registering that I was following Prince's path when he first entered the Fortress, except in reverse. Most of me was occupied with other thoughts.

The Dahaka had taken Prince right before my eyes, and yet I still hadn't quite registered it yet. I remembered when I'd first started trying to move again after my coma, how I'd almost been convinced that I could manage to move my legs if I just _tried_ hard enough, if I just _believed_ sincerely enough—how I could almost feel a phantasmal echo of the dead limbs if I concentrated. Losing Prince (who had anchored himself firmly into my heart somewhere along the line) was like that. I could grasp that he had died, sure: I just couldn't accept that he was _gone. _There would be no more making fun of his melodramatics (if only in my head), no more trying my hardest to make him laugh, no more getting pissed off at him because he was being an idiot.

At some point I reached the top of the long, broad staircase that lead out of the Fortress, and I stopped there, for no particular reason, sitting down on the top step and blinking in the calm, balmy air. _It should be cold,_ I thought with conviction. It occurred to me that I was crying, but I didn't try to stem the flow of tears: Prince's death was the last in a long line of losses and trials, and damn it, I was _sick_ of being reasonable. I'd have myself a good cry, and _then_ I would go and deal with the latest insanity that my fateless existence had decided to dish out.

_Comfort; regret; sorrow._

I swallowed. "Hi, Phil." Then I stood up, turned around, walked through the doorway, down the hall, and stopped right before the void that the passage ended in. "Thanks for being here," I murmured. "I really need a friend right now." And I kept walking.

For a moment the blackness of the void surrounded and consumed me; there was tenseness in the atmosphere, a suppressed excitement or urgency. From Phil, presumably, although I was feeling just a _bit_ tense myself. Then the darkness slid away from me like a curtain being pulled back, and I could see that I was standing on a rough-cut stone platform, a narrow, wooden-slatted bridge stretching out before me. Its railings were illuminated by periodic small ovals of radiant blue, and, looking farther out into the dusky space, I could see that more bridges of a similar nature extending in all directions. The point in the center, though, which connected them all, was a tall, simple yet elegant pagoda, sheltering the sculpted stone fountain beneath, whose waters emitted a luminosity that, though it wasn't inordinately bright, somehow surpassed in brilliance all of the other lights in the place. Its appearance practically shouted _'Important Thingummy' _(and even if it hadn't been, I recognized it from _The Sands of Time). _So, as any reasonable person would do, I immediately headed in that direction (not that there was any other direction to go in).

I was a bit startled when, upon nearing the fountain, I started to be drawn towards it, not of my own volition—but I didn't fight the compelling force. I allowed it to guide me as I stepped up to the fountain, leaned down, and, bringing my hands together in a cupped shape and dipping them into the water, lifted a scoop of shimmering liquid to my lips. Alluring, melodious voices whispered of hidden things in my ears, then everything went white.

Strength . . . _power_ . . . Something beyond all description engulfed me, taking each and every infinitesimal fragment of each and every atom in my body and strengthening it, bringing it to life; making it the best it could possibly be. There was something of a jolt as the power flooded through my lower body, all the way down to my toes, and sense of a burden shed, a weight cast off. But that came second to something else: the blockade in my mind had been unceremoniously discarded, and I was inundated with the flood of knowledge.

The memories rolled over me in an instantaneous, shockingly forceful wave; I felt as though I would drown in the vastness of them all, and yet each individual memory remained distinct and powerful in my mind.

I remembered.

[o{o}o]

_I wake up, utterly confused—I don't understand how this could be real. __**It must be a dream, a coma-induced hallucination, **__I decide, though vivid reality of everything from the stinging pain in my hand where the Ring cuts into my skin to the veiled expressions of fear, uncertainty, and even despair on the faces of my fellow captives speaks otherwise. I can't yet accept the truth; I haven't reached that point._

_"Jenny. That's a strange name. Mine is Farah."  
__I realize, at those words, what is going on. Later I will be used to the impossible; later I will accept incredible happenings as the norm, but now, so fresh from my mundane, contentedly ordinary existence, I refuse to accept what my senses tell me. It's __**impossible, **__and therefore, there must be some other explanation. But perhaps even now I am learning to accept that sometimes things are __**exactly **__as they seem, no matter how impossible that seeming is, for though it takes a moment to steady my composure, my only response to the revelation is to smile at Farah, betraying none of my thoughts. "Are we going to Azad, perhaps?"_

_*  
__There's a battle going on inside my mind: fate, or free will? Does it even matter? I shouldn't care, if it's truly a dream, but my chest freezes with fear and dread as Prince slides the Dagger's blade into its place in the Hourglass. Galvanized into action, I finally break free of the paralyzing uncertainty and cry out, with much less tact than Farah. "Stop it, you idiot! You're going to destroy everything!" But my hesitation has cost me: it's too late to do anything but attempt to survive in a world being consumed by death._

_*  
__Farah accepts me almost unquestioningly. Not without reservations, but her life has been a soft one, a sheltered one, much like mine. Even the recent tumult has not quite taught her to be constantly wary, to close herself off from the world. Prince, I know, will become this way later. Farah, though—it seems to be against her very nature. She's smart, wily, but her nature is to care, and it is that, in part, which leads me to start seeing her as a __**person**__, as someone who I could grow to care for._

_Prince is different. He still retains an unreasonably huge ego, but his terrible mistake of releasing the Sands has left him thoroughly disillusioned, and, in my true opinion, afraid. Afraid to trust, afraid to act, afraid to fail. I don't think he ever truly decides to trust me, or even Farah—but it happens, slowly but surely, nonetheless, much as they slowly but surely wend their way into my heart.  
I don't notice my subtly changing perspective, though. I'm completely, blissfully oblivious until suddenly it's not so important anymore—or rather, it is, but it's not so important that I feel like fighting it. Not so important as having a friend.  
*_  
_"My name is Lucan. What is yours?" He speaks slowly and carefully, as though he is not sure I am quite sane. Fine way to greet me, considering the fact that I just saved his stupid seal-eyed life.  
I don't instantly dislike him. Not quite. He infuriates me, though, with his condescending attitude, his annoyingly self-possessed demeanor. I'm not sure when the transition occurs—when he stops being infuriating and starts being amusing, when I begin to __**enjoy **__the exchange of insults, instead of being offended. It's Lucan. That's part of who he is. And someday, though I don't know it yet, I will love him for it._

_*  
It is due to Lucan, although indirectly, that I learn of how and why I am in this world. In a garden, by a fountain, I first meet the undine Raya. She possesses a quiet self-containment as well—although hers is much less mischievous than his is—so perhaps this is where he learned it from. From her, I learn the truth of things: of the Ring, the Sands—and the terrifying, desperate hope that perhaps, after all, I might make it back home someday._

_*  
"Don't leave me," Farah pleads the unmoving figure in her lap. "My love, please don't leave me."  
I see it from the outside, as, apparently, Farah is beginning to suspect from within. They argue constantly. He and his father are responsible for the destruction of everything she held dear. She only suffers his presence because she needs his help in order to undo his terrible mistake . . . Or, at least, that was once the truth. He's a chauvinistic, stuck-up pig at times, and she's headstrong and proud, but when they're together, they just . . . fit.  
Prince's eyes open to squint up at Farah in bewilderment. "What did you call me?"_

_*  
I'm dead. Well and truly dead. Perhaps I could have survived the injuries, had it been an ordinary car crash—but the Ring added a new twist on things. Even had my body survived, it would have been merely an empty husk, void of anything that made it __**me. **__I am here, trying to survive as my best friend grieves my death, literally worlds away. And I feel so lost . . ._  
_ "Well . . . you look more or less alive to me." There's a faint teasing glint in Lucan's eyes, but his hand rests on my shoulder, offering silent support, and I know that he's serious. "And you know what they say: Where there's life, there's hope. Don't give up, Freckles."  
__**Freckles. How original.**__ But . . . suddenly, unexpectedly, things aren't so bad anymore._

_*  
The secret is out with a single thoughtless sentence: "In my world they call it déjà vu." If that hasn't given it away, it certainly doesn't help when I oh-so-subtly gasp loudly and clap both hands over my mouth, horrified at my slip.  
They take it surprisingly well.  
__**"WHAT?"  
**__*  
He's won me over. It has happened over time, not all at once by any means, but still, shockingly quickly. Maybe it is something in the Sand that makes my heart act so irrationally, so impulsively, because even as Leila presents the evidence right before my eyes that the Lucan I care for has never been real, has always been planning to betray us, something stops me from believing; something makes me pause long enough to doubt. I know it could all have been an act. I know he could have me fooled, blinded by what I feel for him, the feeling which I dare not name. I know this. But I look into his eyes, the ones I've decided are just the perfect shade of brown, and I just can't —__**won't**__— believe it.  
I'm not sure quite how he's managed it, but somehow I don't just care for him: I trust him._

_*  
He betrays my trust. When he needed me I stood by him, but when my time comes he turns his back on me, unable to see past his fear and suspicion. And his doubt may be our destruction. There is no room for forgiveness in me, only hurt, only betrayal, only a sad, confused sort of questioning: __**Why? Why did I trust you?  
Why didn't you trust me?  
**__*  
"I'm sorry," he says quietly. As though that's enough. As though that could __**ever **__be enough. He doesn't explain, doesn't try to make useless excuses, which is almost a relief, in a way—but I want to hear it. I want to know. I want there to be more of a reason than that he just didn't trust me enough.  
There isn't, though, and it makes me angry. Angry is better, __**so **__much better, than showing any vulnerability, so I repeat his words mockingly: "You're sorry. You're __**sorry?**__ Sorry isn't good enough! I want an explanation! What the heck was going through your head? Why did you choose __**that **__moment not to trust me? Why didn't you say something before?"  
I know, though, even as I ask, that he won't be able to answer. And I let the anger run freely through me, purging the hurt._

_*  
My catching of Farah is hardly graceful—it's rather ignoble, in fact, as she ends up knocking me over with the momentum of her fall. But she's alive. She's __**alive. **__I've finally managed to change something: I've finally managed to save her. I can only feel wonder that we're finally here: it's finally time.  
But then the screams begin._

_*  
It looks like him. Can act like him, if it wishes. But the not-Lucan is exactly that: not Lucan. Lucan, the one who betrayed me; Lucan, the one who made me feel life when I needed it most; Lucan, the only one who called me Freckles. __**And the one who never will again. **__The not-Lucan is none of these things. It is a creature, emptied of anything that made Lucan who he was.  
With the help of Prince, I destroy the creature. Lucan has been dead since the moment the Sands spread through his body, corrupting it and changing it into a soulless monster. There is no wonder left in me anymore: I can only long for the escape that the forced amnesia from the Hourglass will bring.  
__**Not long now.**__**Not long until you won't need the numbness anymore, because you won't remember him. You won't remember what his head looks like without a body. You won't regret that you never told him that you forgave him, and that you . . . loved him.**__  
It's the first time I've really admitted it to myself. I close my eyes, shoulders bowed, and allow myself to grieve; but only on the inside. No tears leak from the corners of my eyes, and although my slightly quickened breathing wants to degenerate into sobs, I keep the firm control over my body that I cannot over my heart._

_*  
"No! __**Wait!**__ I could give you power! Immortal life would be yours!" _  
_I think of immortal life: of living forever in a empty husk of a world, everything and everyone I have ever cared for dead or disappeared, my only companion a deranged, power hungry man who I detest with every fiber of my being. My stomach twists in revulsion at the very idea. I laugh bitterly, suddenly and completely understanding the Prince's words to the Vizier when offered the same choice.  
"Live forever? When those I loved are dead, and I to blame? __**I choose death**__.__"_

[o{o}o]

I staggered as the brilliance of the magic-fountain faded from my vision, reeling from the overload of memories that I'd just received. My mind roared, trying to sort everything into its place—trying to sort _me_ into _my_ place. Who was I?

_Jennifer Andrews. Jenny. Freckles. Fateless. Daughter, sister, Artifact-bearer, friend of demons and princesses, bane of Sand creatures (sometimes), and fateless manipulator of the Timeline. May she rest in peace. _

Yup. That would be my epitaph.

Slowly, I sorted myself out; it was harder than I would have anticipated. But all the same . . . I still felt like _me_, it was only that _me_ now had a confusing set of experiences in my head that were both disturbingly similar and utterly incompatible. If only I'd remembered all of this when I _started—!_

I would have known Prince. He'd recognized me instantly, and while at the time I had scoffed at his claims of having known me in another timeline, now that I remembered I wanted to run up and say something along the lines of, _"I'm baaack! Miss me?" _and maybe scold him a bit for turning into such a drama queen even when he'd had the benefit of my guiding influence. It was odd, now, remembering meeting him for the first time—_twice. _It also bothered me that I'd had to go through the whole acclimatization again though. I felt like I'd had to do twice the work to reach the same point. All of the things I'd learned the first time I came to this world had had to be relearned, only without Farah available to be a sympathetic ear, or Lucan to distract me with verbal sparring, or just _be _there and make things better, somehow.

_Lucan._ The ache of absence was distanced by time and experience, but his name still felt like a physical pain in my chest. I hadn't forgotten his betrayal, and never would, but the rage and resentment that had felt so all-consuming at one point hadn't survived the heartbreaking moment when I realized that he was gone, and there was nothing left to be angry at—no one left to forgive. At that moment I'd wanted nothing more than to have him there with me again, to scream at and hug and _love—_but he hadn't been. And suddenly my anger hadn't mattered, had seemed almost irrelevant, because Lucan was dead and he'd died thinking I hadn't forgiven him. But—but that _wasn't true anymore._ Somewhere, out there, he was still alive—but he didn't know me, and the love I still felt for him was unrequited. All the same, though . . .

_You were wrong, Prince. I wouldn't give what I have left of him up for anything. Not even an unlimited supply of chocolate-covered coffee beans._

Then my thoughts sort of—stopped in their tracks.

_Prince. Holy armadillos, __**Prince!**_ The Sandwraith—Prince—'my' Prince—I was too confused to sort out the difference (or lack thereof) between them right now. All I knew was that last time I'd seen him (or, the Sandwraith him—_AARGH!)_ he'd been wearing the Water Sword, which meant that as soon as he coerced Kaileena into going into the present he was going to be facing the Dahaka. And when I thought about it clearly, I knew that the Sandwraith Prince and 'my' Prince were one and the same, just as the 'me' who had met the Prince in Azad and the 'me' who had traveled with him here were one and the same: it was only that that other 'me' hadn't ever really existed, except in the Timeline and in Prince's memory, and now in mine. I knew this—I didn't really believe it. It was hard to accept—I'd seen the Prince die right before my eyes, and realizing that he was still alive in the form of his Wraith self wasn't the same as accepting it. But I had to help him.

I had been staring unseeingly into the space over the Fortress stairs, so I started to turn abruptly—but something made me pause. My legs felt strangely . . . alive. Always before they had felt almost real, except for the fact that they were so carefully nonreactive, never getting bruised, scratched, dirty, or wet; never changing, because they weren't actually _there_. Now, though . . . I looked down. No Sand greeted my vision, only ragged jean cutoffs, some shamefully pale shins, and a pair of small, bare feet. No shoes.

For just a moment, I allowed myself to grin. "Thanks, Phil!" I said to the air. Then I was running, this time with _my_ legs.

[o{o}o]

**AN: The two most frequently asked questions since the beginning of this fic, finally resolved! She has her legs **_**and **_**her memories back! *randomly grabs OPOD and gives him a bear hug*  
OPOD: **"Mrmph?"**  
I KNOW! ISN'T IT GREAT?  
OPOD: ***discreetly covers ears***  
So . . . *cough* Was Jenny's reaction to Prince's death (and her rationalization of his two selves) believable? I thought I did an okay job . . . Not sure about the memory-meld, though. Feedback, please! :)**

**~Killer Zebra**


	18. No It Isn't

**AN: Yay! Update! This story's almost finished! I'm so excited! You can tell because of the exclamation points! ... !**

**In any case, here's a huge "Thank you" to those of you who reviewed! Your encouragement keeps me writing! I'm sorry that I haven't replied to your reviews like I usually do, but I am currently responsible for a hyperactive 5 year-old, which doesn't leave me with a lot of free time... Regardless, I hope you all enjoy this chapter!**

**WARNING! *SPOILERS* for those who haven't played the ending in which you fight the Dahaka!**

[o{o}o]

Jenny (narrating): _It didn't matter, in the end. Despite the cost, it had to be done, and I was willing to pay that price. I didn't like it, dreaded the prospect in fact, but I was willing._  
**(Excerpt from Chapter 19 of **_**Not What I Had Planned)**_

[o{o}o]

_Last Chapter: For just a moment, I allowed myself to grin. "Thanks, Phil!" I said to the air. Then I was running, this time with __**my**__ legs._

**Chapter 17: No It Isn't**

I didn't bother to climb along some ledges, instead teleporting past them, and I took a similar policy on the rest of the way back to Central Hall, using my ability so frequently that periodically I just had to stop moving for a moment and allow myself to recover my balance and vision, reorienting myself. As I had expected, Central Hall was empty of anyone when I reached it, so I didn't pause there, instead continuing without hesitation on the route to the Hourglass Chamber. This took longer than I liked, since even with my ability to teleport I still had to be careful when navigating halls that practically teemed with traps. It was all a matter of timing, and timing took—well, time. All the same, it only took a few minutes for me to travel from Central Hall to the Hourglass Chamber, and once there, shaking off a shiver at the peculiarity of revisiting the place where I had first woken, I looked to the platform at the top of the Hourglass.

_**There.**_

I was moving almost before the bright light had faded from my vision, running through the open gate (infernally difficult thing), around the corner, and into the Throne Room—but the wall behind the throne was only a jagged, gaping hole, already smashed through by Prince's sword, and I knew that my headlong dash wasn't over yet. My breath was coming in huge, lung-searing gasps, but I still had some stamina left in me (most likely thanks to Phil). I took another enormous inhalation and charged onward, up the red-carpeted stairs, over the throne, through the broken wall, through the curtain of icy water—into the waiting Time-warp vortex.

[o{o}o]

_Blah_. Groggy, I sort of _trudged_ of the vortex, staring blearily around me and not really paying attention to where I was going. Then I was abruptly brought back to shocking, cold reality by an impromptu douse in freezing water by the cascade on the threshold of the portal-room, and I remembered that I was supposed to be in a hurry: my body reluctantly obeyed my urging and sped up until I was running again.

Several minutes later, though, when I finally spotted the object of my search, I slowed down, then stopped entirely, staring. Apparently he didn't notice my presence, because he launched himself outward and, somersaulting through the air in an impressive feat of acrobatics, landed with a roll and came to his feet at the edge of the enormous stone table where Kaileena waited. I crept forward to watch.

"I know what you've seen—" Prince said urgently, stepping forward and looking pleadingly at the Empress, "—what you _think_ you've seen in the Timeline!"

Her response was cold: "Then you know I have no choice."

Prince bent his head to meet her emerald eyes with his intense blue-green ones. "There is _always _a choice, Kaileena." Fierce pride welled up in me at his words: even as worn down and desperate as he had become, Prince was trying to do the right thing.

Unnoticed in the shadow of the corridor that Prince had just left, I realized that I had a choice to make as well. Prince was safe, now that his other self was dead; no longer the object of the Dahaka's hunt. Kaileena, however, didn't belong in this time, and Prince would defend her with his sword (the Water Sword, the only mortal weapon —if it was that— that could harm the Guardian of the Timeline) and all of his considerable skill in battle if the Dahaka attacked, which I knew he would. I didn't want Prince to die, and that was a very real possibility: even with the Water Sword, he wasn't invincible. But—the Dahaka had helped me when I was hurt. He did what he did to protect the Timeline; because he had to. And—now I admitted—I did not want him to die either. If I manipulated things so that _Kaileena_ was killed, then Prince and the Dahaka would have no reason to fight—but if she wasn't entirely innocent, then neither did she deserve to be killed in cold blood. She had done nothing to warrant that fate (being an annoying, melon-boobed, pathetic excuse for a man-stealer didn't count). But it was either/or, one or the other—as the Empress had said, _a life for a life._ And I was the one that had the power to choose.

I looked out onto the stone table, where Prince still pleaded for Kaileena to listen and she stubbornly refused to believe that he truly sought a peaceful solution.

"Kaileena, you _can_ change your fate! I have done so! A terrible beast was destined to take my life, but I have freed myself from—"

Everything suddenly darkened and grayed, and the Dahaka leapt from a stone outcropping behind them with inhuman speed, releasing a deep, predatory roar as his collision with the earth caused the usual shockwave at impact.

"What _is_ that thing?" the Empress asked, taking an appalled step backward.

Prince's expression was one of horrified disbelief. I could see his thoughts racing as he tried to figure out what was happening, and then the cold, grim look that entered his eyes when he realized: there would be no cheating Fate this time. Rather than responding with fear, he seemed to decide to at least go out defiant to the end. He roared and charged at the Dahaka, sword drawn—but was swatted aside as though he were no more than a pesky fly: the Guardian of the Timeline wasn't after him. The ebony-skinned demon headed straight for Kaileena, snatching her up with his vine-feelers as she released a cry of fear, struggling against his hold.

Prince, knocked to the ground, was utterly stunned (both ways). It took a long moment for him to recover, but when his mind did finally catch up to what was going on, he got angry again; he sprang to his feet.

"This is all _your_ fault!" he hurled accusingly at the ebony-skinned beast. He charged again, but this time his sword's edge struck home. And the Dahaka, letting loose a bellow of alarm and distress (he hadn't known that he had a weakness either), released Kaileena, jerking away from the burning blade that Prince wielded. The Empress immediately fled off of the stone table, but stalled at the edge of the cavern, watching as Prince, realizing his advantage, attacked again.

It would be so easy. All I had to do was wait for a little longer, not take the responsibility—things would happen just the way they would've if I had never been there. The Guardian of the Timeline would be vanquished, unable to hunt down those who tried to escape their fates any longer. It wouldn't be my fault.

_No. I can't do that._

The Dahaka had done some things that I didn't agree with—but he didn't deserve to die for doing what he was bound to do. He wasn't evil, wasn't corrupted, but would I give up his life to spare someone else's?

Kaileena, then—she waited on the outskirts of the battle, occasionally aiding Prince with a blast of Sand. This was _her_ life, _her_ fate. Why wasn't she down there fighting for it by Prince's side? She'd proven before that she was a more than capable fighter, and her cowardly refusal to put herself in more danger than necessary sent a spike of contempt through me. She stood perilously close to the edge of the drop-off . . . If she were gone, the Dahaka would have no reason to remain. He would leave unharmed. I could teleport over there, push her over the edge, and be gone before even _she_ knew what was happening. Prince would never know: no one would ever know.

_**I **__would know. _

It had never really been a possibility, despite my wishful thoughts. But for the first time in my life, I wished that I were the bad guy: that I was cowardly enough, selfish enough, to do the wrong thing. All things chocolate-y knew I wasn't perfect, but I wasn't stupid either: I tried to avoid doing things that I knew I would regret later, and this was _definitely_ one of those. I would have taken an undeserving life, and I'd have to live with that knowledge for the rest of mine. It would drive me insane. But I had to choose.

I thought: _It's my choice._

Then I looked out at the combatants once again, and I realized the truth with a hollow, nauseous feeling twisting deep in the pit of my stomach: _No. No it isn't. _

The problem was that I had a conscience. And man, was it _badass. _It had demonstrated countless times that, no matter how things might seem at first, anything and everything that attempted to fight against it would lose miserably.

Unfortunately for me, this included any instincts of self-preservation that I had.

Resisting the urge to smack myself for doing what I was about to do (which was possibly the dumbest thing I had ever conjured in my twisted brain), I instead stepped out of the shadow of the stone overhang.

"STOP!" I shouted.

Three sets of eyes turned toward me in unison, momentarily pausing—but Prince wasn't distracted for long. He took advantage of the Dahaka's hesitation, driving him back towards the edge.

I gritted my teeth. _Of course it wouldn't be that easy . . ._

Then I teleported down and promptly tackled Prince. He didn't possess Lucan's astonishing talent to remain upright when I did that, and soon we were both in an undignified sprawl on the stone floor, trying to scrambling back to our feet.

"What are you doing, Jenny?" Prince snarled once he was upright, immediately facing the Dahaka again. However, the Guardian of the Timeline did not attack. He was looking between me and Prince, waiting.

He knew, as well, that in the end it was my choice.

"Look," I said firmly, my hard stare directed mostly at Prince, "No one here is the bad guy. None of you need to die!"

"Oh?" It was Kaileena. _Finally down from your safe little perch, I see,_ I thought, frowning at her. But she was giving me a look similar to the Dahaka's—only hers pleaded, desperately hoped. I couldn't resent her for wanting to live. . . . Okay, so maybe I could, but only a little.

Prince raised a cynical, impatient eyebrow at me, obviously itching to get back to the fight. "How did you come to _that_ miraculous conclusion, Jenny? Care to enlighten us?"

I didn't appreciate the sarcasm, but I chose not to reply, instead turning my attention to the Empress. "You said I could choose my own fate, and change others'. Is that right?" I demanded. _You're stalling,_ my subconscious observed. I pointedly ignored it.

Drawing her eyebrows together in a slight frown of puzzlement (and still glancing warily at the Dahaka every so often), Kaileena said, "Yes." But it sounded like a question.

My eyes slid closed. I took a deep breath; nodded. When they opened again, there was a calmness inside of me; an acceptance. I was prepared. As much as I could be for something like this, anyway.

"Okay," I said. "Then I choose yours."

I'd expected exclamations of shock; there weren't any. There were only _stares_, which was almost worse. The Dahaka's features were unreadable, as always, but Prince's expression was one of utter disbelief. _I don't really believe I'm doing this either, if it makes you feel any better, _I wanted to say, but I remained silent. The Empress, though . . . she looked hopeful. A little ashamed of the hope, perhaps, but hopeful.

I didn't think that it was so difficult to understand. I was dead already: I had the least to lose. My life was something that had been recycled so many times already that death was hardly anything new . . . or at least that's what I tried to tell myself. That didn't mean that I wasn't scared to pieces. But . . . part of me, a part that I hardly acknowledged, was _relieved._ Just glad that it would all be over. I was ashamed of the cowardice behind those thoughts, but they did make my decision a little easier to bear.

Prince was the first one to speak: "No," he stated flatly. The Dahaka chimed in with a low growl, clearly stating his opinion.

"It's not your choice," I reminded them, speaking calmly and evenly. "It's mine. _Someone_ is going to die here, and if I don't step in it's going to be one of you. I can't let that happen." The last words were said in a low voice, more to myself than to them: reminding myself of why I was doing this; keeping hold of my conviction.

"Jenny . . ." Prince drifted off, looking at me. I shook my head.

"I know what I'm doing," I assured him, wondering if it was true. Then I gave an inner shrug and decided that it didn't matter: I was doing it anyway. I looked to the Dahaka and said, trying to speak with conviction: "I choose Kaileena's fate. My life for hers. Take it." I didn't really know how all of this fate-trading business went, but the Guardian of the Timeline would presumably know who it was that was fated to die by his hand, and if that person . . . switched.

The demonic being looked at me, then sort of _jerked_—like he was just barely stopping himself from grabbing and absorbing me right there. _Good. It worked then._ **"SseletaF, uoy llik ot tnaw ton od I,"** he growled, sounding rather angry, but—sincere, all the same. _[I do not want to kill you, Fateless.]_

"I know," I said quietly. "I don't particularly want you to kill me either."

There was a moment of charged silence, finally broken by a quiet, almost whispered: "Thank you."

The Empress.

I could have said: _I'm not doing it for you,_ which was true. I was doing it for me: because there wasn't any other choice I could live with. (. . . Okay, bad choice of words. I couldn't exactly 'live with' this decision either, could I? But that was the point of the whole thing: I didn't have to.) I could have said: _You're welcome. And stay away from Farah's man, otherwise I might change my mind._ I didn't. I just nodded slightly in acknowledgement, holding back my feelings of resentment.

I looked up; started to walk, heading for Prince. When I reached him I didn't hesitate to pull him into a hug, as I had done once before, knowing that things were going to come to an end. He wasn't the person he had been then; he didn't return the hug, instead holding himself stiffly in my embrace. I didn't much care: it was enough. When I stepped away our eyes met, and both of us knew that there was no going back. "You could forget, for a while at least . . . with her," I said quietly so that only he could hear, gesturing to Kaileena.

Prince opened his mouth to reply, then stopped abruptly, a strange expression crossing his features. After a moment he smiled wearily, looking at me. "You were right," he admitted, sounding almost incredulous. "I could, but . . . I find that I don't want to, not really. I . . . I want to hold on to what I have left."

I smiled suddenly, and it was a smug smile. _Told you so._ Aloud I murmured, "Good: because if you'd said anything else, I swear I would've haunted you." Then I added, almost nonchalantly: "You hugged back last time." It was with a feeling of utmost satisfaction that I registered Prince's eyes widening in realization of what I meant.

I turned and walked toward the Dahaka; stopped; said, "Prince, lose some of the melodramatics. And tell Farah I said 'Hi'." There was no response, but I could almost _feel_ the gears in the royal's brain churning as he tried to figure out what _that_ meant.

I drew close enough to the behemoth black demon that he was almost shaking with the need to follow his instincts and bring me to my fate, giving the ground below him a white-eyed glare in the effort not to look at me. It was . . . scary. I trembled for an entirely different reason, but tried to hide it for the sake of my audience. My survival instincts, as pathetic as they apparently were, were still screaming at me: _HEY!_ _YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!_

_No! Really?_

Then I said to the Dahaka, "I'm sorry." He didn't want to kill me, and I was making him anyway. It wasn't very charitable of me. I took another step forward; there was a roar of frustration, a flurry of black and gray—I was snatched up and pressed into something that gave, enveloping me—there was a sense of being pulled apart, disembodied—but not painfully. More like I was going through one of the Time-warp vortexes.

_Not a bad way to go, comparatively speaking, _I thought philosophically. And I would know, wouldn't I?

Then I wasn't thinking much at all.**  
**

[o{o}o]

**AN: Okay. I'll pull the Mary-Sue card so that you don't have to. I really, _really_ hope that this hasn't turned Jenny into a Mary-Sue. It's just that I started writing the Dahaka, and I started _liking_ him, and Jenny started liking him too, and I would've killed off Kaileena except that that would ruin the plot of T2T—and plus there wasn't really any way for Jenny to engineer that without killing her outright, and her conscience _IS _kind of badass. There was no way that that was happening. So . . . um, I guess this is the part where I stop second-guessing your questions/accusations and politely invite you to review and ask them yourselves? Please? Pretty please?  
****OPOD: ***rolls eyes*  
**Muse: **"Stay tuned for the epilogue!"

**~Killer Zebra**

[o{o}o]

**EXTRA: Requested by WereCatsRule**

**(Set after Original!Prince is killed by the Dahaka)**

Eventually I reached the edge of the break and stopped there, standing with my arms hanging limply at my sides, looking down into the abyss.

A hand touched my shoulder; I didn't bother to shake it away.

"I'm here, Jenny," said the Sandwraith with uncharacteristic gentleness.

I turned around. My eyes narrowed and I raised my hand to poke decisively at Prince's chest with each word. "_You. Are. Dead."_

He interrupted sorrowfully, "I know, and I'm sorry, but-"

_"Meat," _I finished.

He looked confused for a brief instant before the expression was wiped off of his face with a hard _smack. _He jerked back.

"OW!" he exclaimed. He looked indignantly up at me, one hand covering his reddened left cheek protectively. "What was that for?"

I slapped the other one.

[o{o}o]

**_THAT'S ALL FOLKS!  
(Cue Looney-Tunes Music)_**


	19. Epilogue

**AN: Wow. The epilogue. I always get this sort of lost feeling when I finish a fic, like, _'What do I do now?' _Not so much this time, since I have the sequel to work on, but still... Speaking of the sequel, it may be a while before it gets posted. January at the soonest. For one thing, I need to buy T2T to reference while I write, since I don't know it very well, and also, I just haven't quite worked out what I want to do with the sequel. I have some ideas (read: way too many to put into just one story. I need to sift through and keep the best ones), I just haven't figured out how to work them all together yet. If you have any requests, send them in now! Specific or general, I'll try to fit them in if I can. Lucan will be back, most definitely. I haven't decided about Leila or Raya yet. As for the Wannabe-goddess... Let's just say that there was a reason why we never saw a body. ;)**

**Reviewers, thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You guys are great! I write for one reason: to put my ideas on paper. I post for two reasons: for your enjoyment and critique. In other words, you guys keep me posting! Thank you all so much!  
If you haven't reviewed before, please do! I want to know your thoughts, even if your thoughts are just a, "That was good," or, "What the heck were you thinking when you wrote this?"  
Regardless, I hope you all enjoyed reading. C: **

[o{o}o]

**Epilogue**

_They say that your life flashes before your eyes when you die. Well, I've died three times already, and there's never really been that much life-flashing. Things happened too fast. Afterwards, sure—I pondered deep things like the meaning of life, love, and insufferability, wondered if there was a reason that I didn't—er, __**did **__die (but, you know, survived. It gets confusing sometimes). I've had the chance to do some thinking this time, though, to prepare myself. _

_So, when rational thought finally does kick in again, I'm not all that surprised to find that I am drifting aimlessly in a formless abyss of darkness—or, it seems like darkness to me, who has no eyes to see it. _

_Unlike the last time I thought myself dead, I don't feel particularly dissatisfied; I don't feel disappointed in myself. My life has been a good one. I had a family that loved me, true, loyal friends, one who was something more . . . and most importantly of all, my death was for a purpose. I can honestly say that I don't regret the decisions and events that led up to my eventual demise._

_Except one thing._

_**Drat,**__ I think unhappily. __**I forgot to scream something memorable again. **__Reconsidering, though, I decide that my manner of death was memorable enough to make up for not screaming __**"Armadillos!"**__ or __**"Batman!"**__ or __**"Chocolate-covered coffee beans!"**_

_**You're stalling,**__ my subconscious remarks again. I pay attention to it this time. _

_My thoughts have been a distraction from the all-important question hovering at the edges of my consciousness: __**What happens now?**__ I refuse to believe that this is all that comes after death. If my 'self', my consciousness, survives past my body, then it __**must**__ be for a purpose; it __**must**__ be for more than this. _

_I don't know it yet, but it will be a long time before my question is finally answered._

[o{o}o]

_The nothingness is awful. I think that time __**is**__ passing—that there are actual, measurable minutes, hours, days, weeks—but there is no way to mark them, because there is no change at all. The only thing that occupies the darkness is me, and, over the endless, changeless, inescapable monotony of what feels like years, my musings, regrets, nostalgia, curiosity, annoyance, periods of panic, and even boredom finally subside into a dull, listless stupor: I am finally giving up. The point comes that I realize with horrid, utter certainty that I am going to be trapped in this no-man's-land forever. I am not living, and even if I were, there is nothing to live for. There is nothing but the darkness, nothing but the empty void. I'm no longer sure that there ever was anything else. Did Jenny ever live? I have forgotten, if I ever knew. My sense of self slowly fades into the blackness, consumed by the void, until there is nothing left._

_Time goes by. The abyss never changes to mark its passage. But— the darkness grows darker, from nothing-dark to dark-dark. The amorphous entity that was once Jenny, Freckles, Fateless—stirs. _

_**Change. Life**__. _

_It had called itself dead before, when it still had a name, an identity: now what little of that identity remains knows that sometimes death is not what comes after your physical body stops functioning. It is the moment that you cease living for the sake of it and merely exist because you have no other choice. To all intents and purposes, it is dead already. _

_But part of it still holds close a memory, a feeling—__**That's life,**__ Jenny says to the unresponsive sentience, trying to make it remember, trying to make it live again. And so when the darkness shifts, the sentience recognizes what it is:_

_**Change. Life**__._

_And I wake up. _**  
**

[o{o}o]

**AN: Don't know if the whole switching of third/first-person view was too confusing . . . it was to add to the effect, to illustrate Jenny losing and regaining her sense of self, but I'm not sure how well I got it across. And I know that it's not quite what I've usually been doing with the prologues/epilogues, but I couldn't really do this from an _outside _POV. I can just picture it:  
_There is darkness . . . and that is all. Nothing happens except for in the main character's head, and we can't see that. Then, all of a sudden . . . nothing happens. Except for in the aforementioned person's head._  
**

** What do you guys think? Ready to kill me yet because of the cliffy? REVIEW! If you haven't reviewed yet, please do so, even if it's just this once! I'd love to hear from you. :) Stay tuned for the sequel!**

**~Killer Zebra**

**P.S. I gotta post this and scram, but I'll be replying to all the reviews from the last chapter (and this one) as soon as I can! **

**End-of-story notes: Wow! The sequel finally finished! Just one more left. :) **

**Reviewers! Thank you SO MUCH. I love hearing all of your opinions, and it's great to have my work appreciated. You guys are awesome. C:  
Special thanks to _Riku's Music Lover, _who's been faithfully reviewing all the way through _both _stories, and to _WereCatsRule, godofmadness43, IceyKrystal, RavenWolf2089, _and _Wolfinson, _who nearly always took the time to put a word of encouragement or critique in. Thank you! You guys keep me motivated!**


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